


An Unhappy Man

by DorsetGirl



Category: Ashes to Ashes, Life on Mars & Related Fandoms, Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Angst, G - White Cortina, Madness, Time Period: 1973-1981 (Life on Mars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-10
Updated: 2008-04-10
Packaged: 2019-01-20 17:40:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12438165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DorsetGirl/pseuds/DorsetGirl
Summary: What if everything Frank Morgan told Sam in LOM 2.08 was true?





	1. Monday & Tuesday

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Janni, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [the Collators' Den](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Collators%27_Den), which was moved to the AO3 to ensure access and longevity for the fanworks. I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in October 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [the Collators' Den collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/collatorsden/profile).
> 
> **Author's notes:** MAJOR SPOILER FOR _LIFE ON MARS_ \- BOTH SERIES.
> 
> This story tackles the very heart of _Life on Mars_ , so if you have ambitions to watch any part of either series unspoiled, please DO NOT read this!

~ ~ ~  
**  
** MONDAY AFTERNOON  


“Sam? Got a moment?” Sam Williams looked up at DCI Morgan, standing in the doorway to his office. “Of course, Sir.” He gestured to the visitor’s chair.

“Frank, Sam. Frank,” Morgan said, sitting down in front of the desk. “Same rank now, you know.” 

“I know, Sir. I still haven’t got used to it.” Williams placed his coffee carefully on the coaster and waited, wondering what Morgan wanted. The man was assessing his desk: uncluttered as ever. Williams had no complaints about the new clean-desk policy, in fact he flattered himself that it stemmed from something he himself had mentioned to Morgan in one of their monthly meetings. Morgan took a moment to arrange his pens on Williams’ desk, then he looked up and spoke.

“Gene Hunt, Sam. DCI, ‘A’ Division. Heard of him?”

‘A’ Division? In the centre?” Williams thought for a moment. He kept in touch with the careers of all the DCIs; when he was told nearly six months ago of his unexpected promotion, he had updated his information, wondering which one he might replace when the official notification came through. He’d been betting on that fool Sweetman, but in the event he’d been given a new role, a desk job, because - he suspected - they did not trust him not to lose control again. He had thought the job a very suitable reward at the time, recognition of his particular skills, but now he wasn’t so sure. Boredom was creeping in, although he would never admit as much to Morgan, who was still waiting for a reply. 

“Oh yes,” Williams said at last. “Didn’t he shoot an unarmed youth without issuing a proper warning first?”

“That’s right Sam. Two years ago. Sloppy procedure – typical of the man, by the way; reflects badly on all of us. And that’s only one incident. They managed to put a good spin on it at the time, not too much damage in the papers, but there are too many instances of poor policing for it to be ignored any longer. We - that is the Chief Superintendent and I - want him removed.”

Williams felt a small thrill of - what, anticipation? Fear? He put his pen down carefully, automatically straightening his files on the desk. “With respect, Sir, I’ve only just started here. I’m in the middle of a programme to re-assess our entire policy on forensic evaluation of evidence in situ.”

Morgan coughed. “Er, no, sorry, Sam. You misunderstood me. Whilst I quite agree you would make an admirable replacement for Hunt, we mustn’t get ahead of ourselves. No, if it were that simple we would have put you in there as soon as your promotion came through. Hunt’s Superintendent – Rathbone, odious man – would be only too glad to get rid of him, but there are procedures to be followed.” He smiled ruefully. “Only right of course. Can’t get rid of a man just because you don’t like him.”

Morgan smoothed his waistcoat; Williams watched as the fastidiously scrubbed nails moved over the buttons. “No, despite his rather - primitive - methods,” Morgan continued, “Hunt has a good record, apart from that one black mark. Remarkably few complaints given the reports that we hear. His division has an adequate clear-up rate and good intelligence on what’s coming up, but he can’t be allowed to carry on beating up suspects. He even hit a witness last month - a woman! Put her in the cells - to ‘cool down’ apparently.” 

Morgan leaned forward, fixing Williams with his eyes. “The public are beginning to take notice of the way we do things, Sam. Policing has to progress, and be seen to progress.”

“I completely agree with you, Sir. So where do I come in...Frank? If you’re not going to replace Hunt?” Williams couldn’t quite see where this was going at present. It didn’t seem likely Hunt was asking for someone to write him a set of procedures.

“Oh we’re going to replace him, Sam.” Morgan smiled conspiratorially, picking up a pen and sitting back. ”We’re going to get hard evidence of the way he does things and present it to the Chief Constable in a very public manner, so that he has to do something about it.”

Williams considered the idea for a moment. “That would require a thorough investigative process, Sir,” he replied thoughtfully, tapping a pencil against his teeth. “It might take six months. Perhaps more, if it has to be done quietly.”

“And that’s where you come in, Sam.” He gave Williams a bright, encouraging smile. “It would mean going undercover again. It’s essential we take a methodical approach – well I don’t have to tell you that, do I, Sam? Think you can handle it?”

Williams stared at his erstwhile superior in shock and well-concealed fear. “Sir, I would be the first person to volunteer, as you know. Always. But after the last time, the doctors said if I went undercover again I was at risk of “severe and permanent depersonalisation”, which I understand would mean I could never work again.” He moved his right hand under the desk, hiding the way his fingers had convulsed around the pencil, then swallowed hard and continued. “I’m not proud of that, Sir, but I think it means I’m not the right man for the job.”

“Sam, Sam.” Morgan leaned over the desk again as Williams fought the urge to lean back. “You’re the best man for the job. You have all the attributes we need – you’re analytical, professional, tenacious, meticulous: and you have more experience in this sort of operation than anyone else in ‘C’ Division.” 

Williams continued to look doubtful. “But I’m of equal rank to Hunt, Sir. And he has - what - four years’ seniority? What could I do?”

“Hunt’s DI is about to retire. You’d go in as his replacement, Sam. It’s not that long ago, you remember how to do it. And you’d still get your DCI salary of course.” Morgan had an answer for everything, Williams thought. He was starting to feel pressured again, always a bad sign.

The advantage of going in as a DI was that he would be close to Hunt, Morgan explained. The man was known to operate a relatively informal hierarchy, preferring to rule his domain by sheer force of personality. “To go in as anything less would take too much paperwork, Sam, and more acting from you.”

“How do you mean, acting, Sir? Er, Frank?” Williams asked, puzzled.

“Simply that you’ve been warned in the past about failing to follow orders, Sam,” Morgan said briskly. “I’m sure you remember what a disaster that was six months ago; especially for the hostage.”

Williams’ face tightened with the effort not to react. A man of his abilities, he thought defensively, should not be expected to take orders from idiots, whatever their rank. But it was his own failure to obey, he had eventually come to understand, that had been one of the key reasons for the whole debacle. 

Belatedly, he understood the point Morgan was making, and nodded fractionally.

“So you see. Now, Hunt may have what appears to us to be a dangerously relaxed attitude to departmental discipline, but he hasn’t reached the rank of DCI without knowing how to deal with insubordination. There’s no point in setting all this up if you’re going to have him throw you out in the first five minutes. He’s likely to accept a more ... independent ... attitude from an Inspector than from a Sergeant. If you’re a Sergeant you have to do exactly as you’re told.” Morgan looked at him dryly. “So you go in as a DI.”

“I’d need a few days to think about it, Sir.”

“Of course. But don’t take too long about it, Sam.” Morgan stood up, replaced his pens in his top pocket and moved towards the door. ”Wouldn’t look good to turn down an opportunity like this. Do this right and you win the prize, Sam. Your own Division at 37. Even I had to wait until I was thirty-nine.”

He turned, his hand on the door. “It won’t be easy, Sam. It will be like going back in time, going over there. But keep your eye on the prize, and when you succeed, you can come home knowing you’ve made a difference.”

Alone in his office, Williams picked up his neglected coffee and considered the proposal. Morgan had not disagreed with his assessment of six months for the job, he realised. Even though it would not be his first undercover operation by a long, long way, it was likely to be the longest, and therefore - despite Morgan’s flattering dismissal - the most dangerous to his mental health. 

Although he usually tried to ignore the fact, he had been forced to recognise on a number of occasions that his mental health was not as robust as he might wish. On his ignominious return from the Davis operation six months ago, he had been sent to a Dr Handley for assessment. Much of what the doctor had told him had failed to penetrate his lingering confusion, but he did remember the doctor warning him in the strongest terms that if he experienced any more such episodes he might never recover. Not just no more undercover, but no more work. Possibly no more independent life at all. 

And he knew it could happen. It had happened, briefly but very publicly, on his very first day back after the Davis operation. He had suffered short occurrences throughout his time at the Home and the tough school all the orphanage children attended, although he’d managed to hide those by taking a lot of punishments for day-dreaming.

And always – still - in the back of his mind lurked the shadow of the lost time when he was twelve, after the coach accident. That episode would never be more than a blur of lights, sounds and half-remembered voices, and it had lasted six weeks. He had read the - _his_ \- case notes, of course; Morgan’s predecessor had sent for them before putting Williams into his very first undercover operation. 

Ten years ago now; it didn’t seem possible. It had been like reading about someone else; there had been no spark of memory at all. Six months ago he had been thoroughly unnerved to find the same sense of distance on reading the notes about the hostage situation in the bank. He didn’t remember anything after following Davis into the building. 

_Still_ , he thought, sipping his cold coffee, _my own division, at only thirty-seven_. That was attractive; a prize indeed, surely worth a risk or two. He knew that Morgan would, as each time before, provide full backup and a complete story for his new identity. All he had to do was learn it, and become that person for a time. He’d done it before, and he knew he could do it again. 

Putting aside his fears for the moment, he stood up and paced his office, thinking hard. Eventually, noting the light failing outside, he decided to go home and do some more detailed thinking and planning, putting together some of the little everyday details that would support the cover story. It was a pity Pete had moved on, he thought as he drove home through the light early evening traffic; it would have been good to talk to him about this. They could still talk on the phone, of course, but it wasn’t the same.

Unusually for him, Williams had found it relatively easy to develop a rapport with Pete Martin, although he had never been quite sure why. Despite his profession, Pete had a vivid imagination, and soon after arriving in Hyde he had enjoyed helping Williams to plan the details of an operation. They’d worked together over a week or so of evenings, concocting his character’s history and a stock of anecdotes for awkward moments. 

As he prepared his dinner, chopping and mixing with a confidence and abandon he wished he could bring to other areas of his life, Williams thought that if only Pete had a phone in his flat, he might have talked to him about this latest operation. But the phone was outside the landlady’s door, and she objected to people standing there chatting. That was exactly what Williams needed at the moment, he realised. A chat with Pete would clarify his thoughts and cheer him up into the bargain, but in the six months since he’d left they’d only met once and spoken on the phone three or four times.

Clearing away his dinner plate he vowed to phone Pete soon; it would be good to catch up with him again. It was time he took a few days off; perhaps if he decided not to take this assignment they could get together next week some time. 

The dreams started again that night.

* * *

** MONDAY NIGHT **

Sam Williams lies alone in his bed, groaning as he twists and turns.

_It’s all green. There are lots of leaves. Sammy walks secretly through the undergrowth; he knows he shouldn’t be here. The trees are ever so big, all the way up to the sky and down to the ground._

_“Mummy will be cross with me, there’s all mud on my special wedding shoes. They’re very smart, wedding shoes, they’re not like ordinary shoes, they have buckles on. Billy next door says they look silly but Mummy said they don’t, they look smart. But she will be cross with me about the mud. I don’t know where she is.“_

_Sammy is a bit nervous; the trees really are very big._

_“I don’t know where Daddy is, as well. Daddy, come back. Are you hiding? Where are you?_

_“There’s a lady, look. Hallo lady! The lady is running. She’s a pretty lady, she’s got a red dress on. You can get dolls with red dresses. I haven’t got one, because I’m a boy and boys don’t play with dolls. But Billy next door’s sister, she’s got a doll with a red dress on. I don’t like it, it’s even bigger than Ivanhoe. Dolls should be little.”_

_“Billy says his sister’s doll comes alive in the night-time and it’s going to get me one night. I don’t think I like dolls. Mummy says dolls can’t do that really because they’re not alive, but Billy says this one is.”_

_“The pretty lady is running past all the big trees. The sunshine makes pretty patterns on the leaves. I don’t think the lady likes the patterns. She’s running. Nice lady, wait for me! I think I’m lost. Is this lost? Mummy said if I’m lost I’ve got to ask a lady.”_

_Sammy keeps walking, looking for the lady. He’s too little to be here by himself. He knows he shouldn’t be here. “Red dress lady, where are you? Are you playing a game? It’s a noisy game, pretty red dress lady, your Mummy will tell you off.”_

Williams sits upright in his bed, muttering in agitation. His eyes are open, he looks all around, but he doesn’t see his bedroom. After a few more moments he sinks back onto his pillows, still murmuring incoherently 

He’s amongst the trees again; the sunshine-dappled leaves move like shadows on water.

_“You shouldn’t make so much noise, pretty lady. Wait for me, I don’t know where to go. Am I lost?”_

_Sammy stumbles on a root; he can’t watch the lady and the ground at the same time. He’s getting a bit frightened now._

_“Daddy! Hallo Daddy, where were you? Did you find the lady? I think she’s scared, Daddy, she was making noises. Can we find the lady now Daddy? Shall we take her home?“_

_“Daddy? Daddy, I think I’m lost. Wait for me, Daddy.”_

_“Daddy, come back, Daddy. I want Mummy. I’m lost.”_

_“Daddy? Daddy!”_

Sam Williams lets out a stifled cry. He sits up again, moves his arms over his head and cowers down. As he shouts “No!” he wakes himself slightly, then he lies down and curls up in the bed, hands over his face. “No, please don’t,” he whispers.

** TUESDAY MORNING **

Williams left the office mid-morning, walking through the back streets to a phone box well away from the station. 

He’d decided he needed medical advice on exactly how much danger he might be putting himself in, mentally, by taking on this assignment. During the course of the morning he’d considered various options; he had finally decided it was best to go back to Doctor Handley herself and as soon as possible, but he didn’t want anyone at the station telling Morgan about it.

“I’m sorry Sir, but Doctor Handley is – unavailable – this week, and her colleague Doctor Whittaker is very busy; I can’t just...”

“Please,” he insisted as politely as he could manage. “It has to be this week. Check my records if you like; you’ll see Doctor Handley fitted me in at short notice last time.” He heard the edge of tiredness and fear in his voice, but he forced himself to relax his grip on the phone. He spoke again more smoothly. “I’m sorry, I know it’s difficult. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t really important.” 

Finally, after speaking to Doctor Whittaker personally, he got a private appointment, early in the morning in two days’ time, and noted it carefully in his diary. Then he walked back to the station via a newsagents’, planning to use the purchase of a paper as his excuse for being out. As he entered the station, he was dismayed to see Morgan standing near the lift. Hoping it was just coincidence, Williams held the newspaper up in greeting and explanation, and smiled briefly as he kept walking.

“Ah, Sam, good,” Morgan said, walking towards him. “They said you wouldn’t have gone far. We need to talk; it won’t take long.” He gestured up the stairs. 

As he followed Morgan up to his office, Williams tried to think of valid reasons to delay answering the question he knew was coming. He really needed the doctor’s advice on the matter before committing himself.

“Right then Sam,” said Morgan briskly as they sat down. “We need to get the paperwork moving if we’re to get you in as Hunt’s DI. If we miss that window it will be a lot harder to place you in ‘A’ Division without arousing suspicion. So, when would you be ready to go? I thought next Monday? Gives you almost a week to prepare.”

Williams stared at him, surprised. “Monday? Sir, I thought I had a few days to think about this?”

“I’m sorry, Sam, but really, how much thinking does it take? This is a golden opportunity for a bright young man. On the spot when the next DCI job comes up. And you’re going to _make_ it come up! To be honest, Sam, I didn’t expect to see you dragging your heels like this. Modern policing needs men who can _seize_ opportunities. Carpe Diem, you know! “ He sat back comfortably and watched Williams, piercing eyes focussed on Williams’ hands. 

Williams put them in his pockets and mirrored Morgan’s posture in a conscious attempt to placate and look relaxed. He thought carefully and then said “As I explained to you yesterday, Sir, the doctors told me they were very concerned about my mental health when I came back from the Davis job. Now, as I believe I also said yesterday, I’m not proud of that, not in the slightest, but it is a fact. I would like to talk to Doctor Handley before we finalise this.” Thinking fast, he added, “I could probably get an appointment for Thursday or Friday.”

“Sam, this is ... ”

Williams ignored him for once. “Sir, with respect, I have to point out to you that I may not be the best man for the job; I wouldn’t want to jeopardise an operation of this importance by making a complete idiot of myself and ruining everything like last time.” Even just thinking about the last time brought him out in a cold sweat. Apparently he’d gone berserk, banging desperately on walls and crying to go home. It might even have been funny if the hostage hadn’t been stabbed and almost died as a result.

“Well, I’m disappointed, Sam,” Morgan said, his tone cool as he stood up. “I didn’t expect this; I thought you would leap at this opportunity. There’s a whole Division out there stuck in a time warp, and we - yes, we, Sam - can help them, bring them into line with modern practice. I wouldn’t have chosen you if I didn’t think you were ideally suited to the job.” He walked to the door, and held it open for Williams. “You’ve got till tomorrow, Sam. I need men who know where they’re going. Men who want to make a difference.” 

Finding himself abruptly in the corridor, Williams walked back to his office in a state of shock.


	2. Tuesday & Wednesday

** TUESDAY AFTERNOON **

 

 

 

Back at his desk, Sam Williams put his head in his hands and concentrated on breathing slowly and deeply. He was going to have to give Morgan his answer before he talked to Whittaker, and there was clearly no real choice but to say yes. He thought about that, and decided that if Whittaker turned out to be strongly against the idea, he would just have to back out again. Morgan would be furious, he knew, but he’d have to agree it was better than Williams damaging his mental health permanently. _Wouldn’t he?_ Williams sat up and stared at the wall, annoyed with himself for letting Morgan put him in this position. 

 

 

Pete had been right all along. He had always said the man was a bully, and it had taken Williams until now to see it. He’d even argued with Pete about it the last time they met; that was two months ago now, he realised.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Saturday night, and at the end of a long day Williams walks through the swing doors out into Reception. He stops dead and shakes his head as if to clear it, but it’s real, Pete’s real. He’s here, smiling brightly at Williams as if they had parted on good terms._

_“Sam, mate! Good timing! I was just going to get someone to call through, I didn’t even know if you were in today.” Pete takes a few steps towards him then stops. “Should have phoned, I suppose, but I’ve been tied up all day. Just thought I’d take a chance, and here you are, bit of luck, eh?”_

_Williams stares at Pete. He hasn’t taken it in yet, that he is really here. Pete hasn’t changed much - it’s only been four months since he left, after all. The clothes are smarter, the merry eyes look tired, and the riotous dark curls are slightly shorter, but in all the essentials it’s still Pete. And, as if to prove it, he’s barely taken breath before he’s rattling away cheerfully again._

_“I came up on the train yesterday; my sister got married this afternoon. Julie, remember?” He adds, with an odd expression on his face. “The one who used to fancy you? Well, there was a bit of a to-do because my Mum’s Aunt Flo said she shouldn’t be wearing white, but Julie said to hell with that, it’s 1973 for God’s sake, no-one ‘keeps themselves for their wedding night’ any more. I thought old Flo was going to combust, she went so red. So, how have you been?”_

_Williams is still standing right where he stopped. He smiles tentatively in acknowledgement of the story, then belatedly he moves forward to shake hands awkwardly with Pete and finds himself drawn into a brief hug. Pete steps back._

_“It’s great to see you mate, I’m ever so sorry I haven’t been back, I’ve been trying to get away for ages. The workload is just horrendous, I had no idea. I’m really enjoying it, but half the time I have to work weekends and then it’s late nights as well and it just seems to be never-ending sometimes.”_

_I wasn’t imagining it, Williams thinks wonderingly. He really does talk incessantly. It should be infuriating, but it’s not, it’s comforting._

_Realising that he himself still hasn’t actually spoken at all yet, he digs deep for the words of apology he’s planned for four months. They come out wrong. “Four months,” he stutters._ Four very long months. _“I... didn’t expect to see you.”_ Ever again. _He dries up momentarily, still thrown. ”So, what brings you back?” He asks it lightly, then curses himself and continues quickly. “Sorry, you said. Julie’s wedding. Sorry, I’m just a bit..., I wasn’t expecting... ”_ Calm down, this is Pete, for heaven’s sake, just Pete. Get a grip. _He smiles again, more naturally this time. “So, um...?”_

_Pete glances around the empty station foyer before saying “I thought we could go out for some grub, Sam, have a good old chat like we used to.”_

_When Williams does not answer immediately, he adds “If you don’t, I’ll have to join my mum and her sisters for wedding cake and even more sherry, and, be honest, no-one deserves that.” He laughs awkwardly. “You wouldn’t abandon me to that, would you Sam? I thought we could grab some Italian, you used to like Italian.” He stops a moment, looks straight at Williams. “It’d be great. If you’re not busy? What do you think?”_

_Williams collects himself finally, motioning Pete to head out of the station into the blue-grey evening._

_As they eat pizza and drink red wine, the conversation flows easily from one idea to another, just as it always did. Pete outlines some of the new computerised search methods he is developing with the new team; Williams interrupts excitedly with ideas for using those methods._

_“So, if we had one of your new – databases – and If we labelled each crime (can we do that?) with the method and the suspects and anything else we thought might be relevant, we could_ analyse _things,_ understand _who’s doing what and why.” His many enforced contacts with psychologists have given Williams insights he would prefer not to have, but professionally he’s intrigued by the possibilities._

_“Yes, that’s right.” Pete looks across the table and speaks hesitantly. “You could, um, come down one weekend, that would be good. We could, I dunno, go out for lunch somewhere, then I could show you what I’m working on. I reckon I could get you into the building OK, if you bring your badge.” He grins suddenly. “Hey, it would be great, then you could come back and show that bastard Morgan he’s not the only one looking to the future.”_

_Williams shifts uncomfortably and says, “Pete, DCI Morgan was my boss. Still is, sort of. I don’t like you being ...” he trails off._

_“Disrespectful?” Pete laughs, then speaks seriously. “Sam, he’s a bully. I know he’s helped you, brought you along, all of that. But you’ve repaid him, more than repaid him. You don’t owe him anything, Sam._ He _owes_ you _. He took all the credit on that thing you did last year, the warehouse one: to hear him talk you weren’t even there. I mean it Sam, he’s not doing you any favours, if he ever did. Have some faith in yourself; you don’t need him half as much as he needs you.”_

_Williams does not know what to say. Part of him can see Pete’s right, and resents the way Morgan does, indeed, take most of the credit. But then part of him understands that for his own future safety, his role in these things has to be played down. It wouldn’t do any good for the city’s criminals to know there’s a cop around who specialises in undercover work._

_Pete looks at Williams searchingly. “So what about the, er, operations? No more planned, I hope? Have you finished with all that? That must feel quite good, a bit of a relief.”_

_“It does, yes. They haven’t asked me for a long while, so perhaps it is all over. I’ve been hearing that some people in high-up places have doubts about the effectiveness of these operations.”_

_Pete snorts in disgust. “Well, I’m not sure about the effectiveness, you certainly have put some big guys away, but I do have opinions about the dangers.”_

_“As it happens, I agree with you, but this is what I do. This is my life.” He’s used to more support from Pete than this. It’s been one of the things helping him to keep going._

_Pete says with unexpected force, “I still think there must be better ways. I think in 10, 20 years, people will look back on all this and think it was all a waste of time, that this is the wrong way.” (* see endnote)_

_Williams is upset and offended. He knows Pete doesn’t mean it that way, but it feels like a personal attack, and it hurts. He turns away Pete’s apology with a prickly politeness which doesn’t improve over the rest of the evening._

_Pete tries to win him round. “Look, what I said earlier, what do you think about coming down to have a look at the database stuff? It’s the future, Sam, it really is.”_

_Williams forces an air of enthusiasm, but Pete’s comments make him question everything he has spent his working life doing. He’s fidgety and tense; he just wants to go home and shut it all out._

_Eventually Pete gives up; he doesn’t look happy as he calls for the bill. “Time to go, I’m afraid, Sam.” He looks for a reaction, but Williams does not speak. Pete continues, “I’m on the lunchtime train tomorrow, and I’ve got to do the rounds first, all the rellies I should have been chatting up this evening.”_

_He watches Williams buttoning his jacket. “Look, I’m sorry about what I said. It wasn’t meant to be against you, honestly. I just...”_

_“It’s OK, Pete, it doesn’t matter. Really, don’t worry about it.”_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Pete had only been trying to protect him. He could see that now, but at the time he’d been too annoyed to understand. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

** TUESDAY EVENING **

 

 

 

_I never did go and visit_ , Williams thought at home later. Yet again, he vowed to phone Pete and try to arrange a meeting before next week; it would presumably have to be the weekend, unless Pete had some time off and could come up. He checked his address book for Pete’s phone number, but there was no answer when he rang it. He tried again several times, but presumably Pete was out, along with anyone else within hearing distance of the phone. Thoroughly dispirited, he decided to go to bed.

 

 

 

 

** TUESDAY NIGHT  **

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Sammy Williams stands defiantly in the middle of the untidy circle. He’s scared half out of his mind, but he does his best not to show it. He’s been hearing whispers since before breakfast. “Have you heard about Sammy Williams? It’s ever so funny. Come round the back of the kitchens tea-time.”_

_The biggest boy speaks first, loudly. All other conversation stops instantly._

_“You ain’t got a Dad, have you, Sammy? You a_ bastard _then, Sammy? ’Cos you ain’t got a Dad?”_

_“No! You’re only a – that word – if you didn’t ever have a Dad. I had a Dad. My Dad died. In a coach crash, with my Mum.”_

_“And I say he didn’t.”_

_Sammy catches his breath in fear; he can’t stop his eyes widening as he tries to blank out what’s coming next. The biggest boy laughs._

_“Your Dad_ buggered off _.”_

_Sammy flinches. “No! No, he didn’t. Don’t say that word. My Dad died. I was ...I was there. And my Mum.”_

_The biggest boy steps forward deliberately. He is very scary._

_“That’s not what my Dad says.” He looks around at the crowd, drawing them in. “My Dad says your Dad_ buggered off _years ago. At the beginning of the War.”_

_“No, he didn’t do - that. He died in the crash, with my Mum. He did.”_

_The boy laughs. “Balls. He was a wide boy, your Dad, didn’t you know? A spiv. Born for the black market, my Dad says.”_

_“No, that’s not true. He was a salesman, selling ... things.” Sammy feels cold, he knows he’s showing weakness now. He does the only thing he knows how to do. He asks a question, points out the flaw in the argument._

_“If your Dad knows so much, why aren’t you with him? Why are you in here with us, if you’ve got a Dad? Why isn’t he looking after you?”_

_The biggest boy looks at him in shock, turning swiftly to anger. After a moment’s hesitation he shouts “Don’t you ask no bloody questions about my Dad! My Dad’s - busy.” He rallies, comes back fighting. “Least I know where my Dad is,” he taunts. “Bet you don’t know where your Dad is.”_

_“No, I ... I do. He’s dead. Buried. He’s in a grave with my Mum. And when I’m grown up, I’m going to buy a stone for them.”_

_“Balls.” The boy stands back, raising his voice. “_ Balls _. I’ve seen your admission papers, little Sammy Williams. Parky left her office open lunchtime.”_

_Sammy can feel the blood leaving his face; it feels as if it’s all in his throat trying to get out. He swallows hard, but does not speak. He doesn’t have any words to fight this._

_The boy laughs delightedly. “You ain’t got a Dad ‘cos he_ buggered off _. Left your Mum with nuffin’, ’cept a load of dodgy coupons,” my Dad says. There was only you and your Mum on that coach, ’cos your Dad_ fucked off _years ago.”_

_“No... don’t say that word. It’s bad, you mustn’t say ... he didn’t.”_

_“He_ fucked off _! You’re an orphan, orphan!”_

_The crowd of hangers-on, greatly entertained, circle round Sammy, who is swaying, holding his hands over his face. They chant “Orphan, orphan! Cry, baby bunting, Daddy’s gone a-hunting.”_

_“No, don’t ...please.”_

_He can’t cope with this any more. He sinks to his knees on the sharp gravel and whispers “Daddy” as his eyes roll up into his head._

 

 

 

Sam Williams turns over and whispers in his sleep. “Mum. Help me.”

 

 

He dreams of the graveyard and the stone.

 

 

 

_Here lies David Williams 1917 – 1950. Also his beloved wife Brenda Williams 1919 – 1950._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

** WEDNESDAY MORNING **

 

 

 

Williams arrived in the office to find a stack of folders on his desk. He had got halfway through them on an initial scan, sorting and discarding, when Morgan paused briefly in the doorway. 

 

 

“Sam, I’m going to be working with you personally on the cover for this one. I’ve got Records started, and in the meantime you and I need to construct and polish a background. There isn’t much time, so we’ll start this afternoon, usual place.” They arranged a time, and Williams went back to leafing carefully through the piles of paper. 

 

 

One picture made him stop and pull it out of the folder to study more closely. It was a four-year-old press cutting from the Manchester Gazette. _“The newly-promoted DCI Gene Hunt, pictured above, takes over ‘A’ Division in the city centre. DCI Hunt, 40, joined the police after National Service, and has been stationed in Manchester for most of his career. ‘A’ Division was previously ... ”_

 

 

So _this_ was Gene Hunt. The picture was presumably taken in the man’s office, and posters and trophies littered the background. The man looked frankly terrifying: the idea, he imagined, had been to show Hunt checking through the files in his new department, but something about his attitude and grim expression indicated more interest in checking through the photographer’s teeth with a capable-looking fist.

 

 

 

 

** WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON **

 

 

 

Meeting Morgan as arranged, Williams was relieved to find that there was no need for him to perjure himself by expressly agreeing to the operation; Morgan simply took his continued co-operation for granted.

 

 

They walked slowly along the path, shoes scuffing gently on the neatly tended grass.

 

 

Williams understood that it was important not to raise suspicions in ‘A’ Division. With Morgan’s signature on the transfer papers, no-one was going to question that he was who he said he was, but they did have to overcome the odd circumstance of his being immediately available. 

 

 

“As you say, Sam, it doesn’t generally look good; it suggests under-utilisation in the current department, which is not something to recommend an officer to his new superiors. So, I thought we’d use _‘Short-term desk assignment following injury in the line of duty._ ’ He glanced at Williams. “It’s pretty accurate anyway, so there shouldn’t be a problem. Records will be able to come up with something to back that up. We’re using the name Tyler, by the way.” 

 

 

“Yes, Sir. Er, I had actually been thinking about that. It being short-term, I mean.”

 

 

“No need to worry about that; it’s just paperwork. The job is there as long as you want it, you know that. You’re doing wonderful work, Sam; we’re all so proud of the way you’ve come back after your, er...”

 

 

“No, I mean - I think I want it to be only short term. I’m very happy with it at the moment, but I really do want to get back to an operational role.”

 

 

Morgan stopped and looked at him sharply. “Stick with it, Sam. You’re shaping policy, designing the future of progressive policing. It’s the most important job anyone can do. I’m only taking you out for this role because I know you’re still the best at it.” 

 

 

Williams gave it up for now, and they continued to walk quietly amongst the stones. Morgan had chosen the place for its tranquillity and for the fact that there was little chance of being noticed or over-heard.

 

 

“Always bear in mind, Sam: Hunt is not a stupid man. Crude, of course, but not actually stupid. You’ll need to get close to him, socialise with him sometimes. And that doesn’t mean going to the opera once a month. You have to understand, at ‘A’ Division it’s like being on a different planet. They simply don’t socialise as we would understand the term.” Reaching the wall, Morgan picked off a trailing stem of ivy before turning left towards a more neglected area. He looked at Williams for a moment. “Hunt is a drinker and a complete philistine. My information is that his intellectual and spiritual life consists almost solely of drinking every night in a public house near to his station. He also follows football.”

 

 

“Sir, I’m not going to a football match! I haven’t been since... I haven’t been for years.” Williams caught himself, realising he was sounding overwrought. He stared hard at an arrangement of flowers in a small vase near the path and willed himself to calm down. “I mean ...I’m...just not interested. I’d really rather not.” 

 

 

“Of course not, Sam.” Morgan looked sideways at him. “Football would be beyond the call of duty,” he added dryly.

 

 

“But the pub, Sam,” he continued. “It’s Hunt’s second office. So just occasionally, you might have to go along too. It would look suspicious if you didn’t. Don’t worry, no-one’s going to expect you to go every night. Well, obviously. But even an oaf like Hunt must make conversation sometimes.” Morgan paused for a moment, concentrating on avoiding a patch of longer grass. “And when he’s drunk is a good time to get him talking. Which means you have to start the ball rolling.”

 

 

Williams thought about it. Getting people talking had not involved much sharing in previous operations. A curt “you don’t need to know that” answered most questions in the circles undercover officers normally moved in. But in a pub, there were bound to be times when the question of background and family etc might come up, and he would have to have answers ready. 

 

 

“I know you haven’t done an operation quite like this one before, Sam,“ Morgan said. “Obviously, when you go undercover amongst our ... criminal brethren, it’s considered a character deficit to talk too much about yourself. But this is different.” Williams could feel the man looking sideways at him, assessing his reaction. “Don’t worry, Sam, I know you can handle it,” Morgan continued. “A man of your skills, you could run rings round those idiots in ‘A’ Division even if you were lying in a coma!” Morgan laughed dryly at his own joke, then continued more seriously. “We need to start work on your cover in detail, Sam. You have to have a whole life planned, ready to lay out pieces casually when someone asks. Or drop snippets into conversation. Some of it will need paperwork, but a lot of it is stuff that wouldn’t be in police records. Where you went in your Gap Year, for example.”

 

 

“I didn’t have a Gap Year, Sir.” Williams said tightly.

 

 

Morgan coughed awkwardly. “Sorry, Sam, I wasn’t thinking. I know your, erm, circumstances weren’t quite...erm... Sorry. But do think about it anyway.” he urged. “The fewer similarities between your cover and your own life, the better it is. Easier to avoid careless slips. So - as we seem to be on the subject - schooldays.”

 

 

They were in an even older section now - some of the stones had fallen here and they trod more carefully as they moved on, skirting areas of brambles and long grass. They skimmed through Tyler’s schooldays; eventually they decided that Tyler _had_ taken a year off before joining the Force. 

 

 

“You can use that year to fit in anything that you let slip accidentally. Any knowledge or experience that doesn’t fit with Tyler’s known career, he did it in his Gap Year. Your Gap Year. Now, I’m sorry about this, I know it’s painful, but we’re going to need to invent some parents for you, Sam. For Tyler. It’s too unusual, too memorable, for him to have no parents. So, father first. What did he do? Something at the Borough Council perhaps?”

 

 

Williams caught his breath. _Idiot! Why didn’t you think about this before?_ He thought about it now. Obviously criminals didn’t talk about their fathers, but a policeman, amongst colleagues - many of them would have fathers they were proud of, even saw occasionally, while he... 

 

 

Without warning his vision tilted and his head filled with sudden noise. Images of woodland, sunshine, a red dress and buckled shoes flashed across his vision; a scream echoed in his ears. He stumbled, the images flickering and disappearing as he tripped over a stone buried in the grass. As usual he clenched his fists and slowed his breathing, willing himself to calm down. As it started to work, he realised he’d closed his eyes, and opened them swiftly, hoping Morgan hadn’t noticed. He had. 

 

 

“Sam? Problem?” Morgan asked lightly.

 

 

“No father,” Williams managed to say, controlling his breathing with difficulty. “He hasn’t got a father.”

 

 

“Well, all right Sam, if you’re sure?” 

 

 

Williams did not answer. Morgan looked puzzled, but asked no further questions. “If it’s that important to you, that’s fine. After all, plenty of other men your age lost their fathers in the war. It’s not unusual at all, and that’s the main thing.”

 

 

“OK, then, a Mum - Ruth, I think,” said Williams hastily, hoping to divert Morgan’s attention from his stupid lapse. He carried on more calmly, “Housewife. Good mother. Makes cakes. And an Auntie – I always wanted an Auntie.” He laughed, realising as he did so that it had come out more bitterly than he’d intended. He did not mention that he had always _fantasised_ about having an Auntie, someone who could have offered him a home after his mother died. 

 

 

The time after his mother’s death was still a blur; the coach accident killed Heather Williams outright and put her only child in hospital for a long time, for reasons he had not fully understood at the time. By the time he was himself again, she was long gone, buried and forgotten. Or so he told himself. And he told himself that it didn’t matter that they’d put the wrong name on the stone; she always hated ‘Brenda’, preferring to use her own mother’s name.

 

 

But the other kids at the orphanage always talked about when their aunties or cousins were going to come and take them out for the day, or the weekend, and Williams always felt left out and inadequate during these conversations. 

 

 

By the time he left the orphanage six years later it still had not occurred to him that the various aunties and cousins never did turn up; that the eagerly-anticipated days out and weekends away never materialised. He only knew that no-one ever came for him.

 

 

 

 

By the time Morgan felt they’d done enough, Williams possessed a fair idea of who “Tyler” was, and how he’d spent his life so far, starting with his pampered childhood with a mother who’d always done her best for him. He decided to write up a summary as soon as he got home, with cross-references to the more detailed notes which he would prepare over the next few days.


	3. Wednesday & Thursday

** WEDNESDAY EVENING **

 

 

 

As he put dinner together, Williams found his thoughts drifting again to the orphanage years. Including three terrifying years at the worst school in Manchester – he’d eventually persuaded them to let him go back to his old school for ‘O’ Levels – it was not a time he liked to think about very often, although it occurred to him occasionally that it might have shaped the way he reacted to people and events. Reluctant to think about it even now, he switched off the gas and picked up the phone to try Pete again.

 

 

Fifteen minutes and two uncomfortable conversations later – one with Pete’s foreign student neighbour, and one with his extremely English landlady – he had to agree that Pete didn’t seem to be in. He’d try again tomorrow, he thought, going back to the cooker. He was too tired tonight.

 

 

 

 

** WEDNESDAY NIGHT **

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Sammy Williams stands nervously in the middle of the tight circle. He’s scared half out of his mind, and it shows._

_This has been building since he first came to this terrifying place. Every day more people gather to look at him as he leaves by the back gate. At first, he thinks they’re just curious, but as more and more people arrive he knows it’s more than that. Today they’re standing in front of him as well as all around. He has no idea what to do; his previous school wasn’t like this. He stands and waits._

_Again, it’s the biggest boy who steps forward. This one really is big._

_“So. Little Sammy Williams. You think you’re better than us, don’t you?”_

_The straight answer is “yes”, but he’s got more sense than to say it. The biggest boy sees it on his face, however, and the game becomes personal._

_“Just ’cause you talk posh, doesn’t make you better than us, prick!”_

_“No, I know it doesn’t.”_

_“And just ’cause you do your homework doesn’t make you cleverer than us, neither, you fucking tosser!”_

_“No... I know that too.”_

_“Oooh, I know that ‘too’. What’s wrong with ‘I know that ’n’ all’, wanker?“_

_“No... nothing, I just ...”_

_“Why you here then, wanker? Your other school chucked you out? Not as clever as they thought?”_

_“No... I mean, that’s not why I’m here. I, um, I moved. I live down the road now.”_

_There’s a laugh from the crowd._

_“We know where you live, tosser!” A voice from the inner circle. “St Banana’s Home for Useless Wankers! This is boring, Terry, hit ’im!”_

__Sam Williams rolls over in his bed. “No, no, no” he mutters __

_The biggest boy grins. He takes out a large pocket knife and Sammy flinches, he just can’t help himself. Terry points the blade at a vicious looking boy in the crowd and motions him forward._

_“OK Dan, have a go,” he says._

_Dan steps forward as Terry moves aside. Without hesitation he kicks Sammy in the shin, and with amazing speed moves around to his back and kicks him twice: lower back, top of the legs. By luck or constant practice he gets the coccyx and scrotum and Sammy collapses, in too much pain even to call for help._

__A deep groan escapes the tortured soul in the bed. A single tear appears, trickling slowly from the tight-shut eyes. __

_Dan melts back into the crowd as Terry laughs. “Didn’t bring any friends with you, then, from your posh old school. Never mind, dick, I’ll be your friend if you do what I tell you!” He aims a kick himself, at Sammy’s left knee this time. “Just got to do what you’re told, Sammy, and don’t do no more homework.”_

__Williams groans again. He turns onto his side and curls into a tight foetal ball. __

_Sammy curls up on the dirty ground, arms over his head. Aiming one last kick at Sammy’s right knee, the triumphant Terry walks off, a spring in his step. The crowd straggles after him, protesting at the lack of action._

_Sammy waits a few minutes, hurting all over, then, breathing carefully, he gets up, shakily, hating himself for being so weak._

 

 

The sleeping man stills momentarily, then lies semi-relaxed as he starts to slip into a deeper, more natural sleep.

 

 

In that moment the alarm goes off, shrilling loudly and insistently as Williams struggles to wake.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

** THURSDAY MORNING **

 

 

 

By the time he’d managed to get himself awake and out of bed, it was still only 6:00; plenty of time to have breakfast and get to Doctor Whittaker’s office for 7:30. _The luxury of going private_ , he thought, pleased with himself for having had the idea. _An appointment without missing work_. Feeling the need for extra confidence on what could be a decisive day, he selected his favourite blue silk tie, the one he’d bought himself two birthdays ago, and knotted it carefully over a light blue shirt. 

 

 

Last time his birthday had rolled around he was three weeks into the Davis operation, and it had passed in the normal way: no-one noticed, and he wondered hopelessly whether this might be the year his father finally turned up. Of course it wasn’t, and years of being careful and contained having had the inevitable effect on Williams’ already limited list of friends, there were no cards waiting for him when he finally returned home. 

 

 

There been no cards the previous year either, he realised. Those few friends who had survived from Police Training College had faded away during the many periods - one undercover operation after another - when Williams was incommunicado. As he could never tell them why he hadn’t answered their letters or returned their calls they eventually took the hint, unintended though it was. It was the nature of the job, he knew, made worse by his own particular line of work.

 

 

Probably none of them had ever known his birthday anyway, or cared. _Do adults even get presents?_ he wondered now. Perhaps he ought to find out when Pete’s birthday was. As he waited for the kettle to boil, he tried to think when he had last received a card or present. In the Home, he supposed, and they would have been from the staff, never the children. He had never managed to engage with the other children - after all these years he still thought of them as the inmates - enough to exchange more than the polite “Good Morning” the staff insisted on. He had spent far too much time in his own separate world, withdrawing into himself every time things went wrong. 

 

 

He had read a story once, years ago, about a man who thought everyone was conspiring against him. The day he finally cracked, and stabbed, slashed and punched ten innocent passengers on the bus, they’d found a notebook detailing the times people had coughed near him, picked up the cake he’d wanted to buy, ignored him or jostled him. It was a terrifying list, a detailed catalogue of tiny events that, added together, the man had found completely overwhelming. He was so consumed by anger at the way he believed the world was treating him, that he felt he had no choice but to strike back. 

 

 

Williams often thought he knew how that man felt. Not that he would ever stab anyone, but sometimes - just sometimes - he could see the attraction, feel the release it would bring. He was well aware that it was his own fault Morgan walked all over him, but he had never learnt the art of standing up for himself against a stronger personality. He had tried, tentatively, a few times, but Morgan hadn’t even noticed, had just carried on issuing orders, rightly confident that Williams would fall into line.

 

 

As he poured his coffee he had a sudden thought: what if he _really_ changed? As in ‘sit down and think about it’ changed? As in ‘plan it and design it and _do_ it’ changed? He thought about it, slightly stunned by the idea. 

 

 

It could start with the name, he thought. He wasn’t sure where Morgan had got it from, but he liked the sound of “Sam Tyler”. A straightforward sort of name for a straightforward sort of man, one completely without mystery or hidden depths. That sounded about right, he thought, draining his coffee and deciding against a second cup. If he was going to try really _being_ a different personality, it might be best to make that personality as uncomplicated as possible. And perhaps amongst strangers, he thought – other officers rather than villains – their various new perceptions of him could help him to see himself differently and _believe_ in that new personality.

 

 

By the time he left for his appointment with Doctor Whittaker, he dared admit to himself that he really was going to shape a new personality to go with the Tyler identity. Perhaps if he’d done it years ago he would not be in this position now. 

 

 

Although, he thought, could it be that simple? Could he invent, and live in, a personality completely different from his own? Was it really possible, he wondered, simply to decide who you were going to be, and then be that person? Not just act, but inhabit that character as if you were him? 

 

 

He decided that once he was free of Morgan’s interminable weekly meeting - _I used to look forward to those_ \- he would spend the rest of the day thinking hard about this new personality and trying to fit it all together.

 

 

It crossed his mind to wonder what Morgan would make of him coming back a different man. Of course, if “Sam Tyler” proved strong enough to see off Gene Hunt, he might even be able to stand up to Frank Morgan. It was a cheering thought.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Arriving in Whittaker’s ante-room at the appointed time, Williams had to wait a few minutes before being called in. He paced around the waiting room, clearly irritating the receptionist; there was a distinct bite to her tone as she asked if he would like some coffee. Resisting the urge to snap at her, he decided instead to try out the idea that had struck him on the way here.

 

 

_This woman’s never met me before_ , he thought. _She doesn’t know me as the tosser who’s probably never had a girlfriend; the one who’d have an affair with a filing cabinet if only he could find its hole_. Oh yes, he’d heard the things they said. This woman had not, so, very tentatively, he smiled at her as he refused the coffee as politely as he could manage. It evidently wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting; she looked a little surprised and then smiled back; just slightly more than a cool professional smile. Encouraged, Williams allowed his own smile to widen with relief. 

 

 

The reaction would have been gratifying if only he’d been experienced enough to interpret it. The widening of eyes and the sudden intake of breath went past him, but there was no mistaking the increase in wattage of the smile itself. 

 

 

It gave him a small boost of confidence to take into a meeting he was more nervous about than he wanted to admit. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

The doctor walked forward as Williams entered the calm, grey-striped room.

 

 

“Good morning, Mr. Williams. Do take a seat.” As they shook hands, Williams assessed the options and selected the visitor’s chair next to the desk. “Now, as I understand it,” the doctor went on, ”you want my advice on whether your mental health issues should be considered as having a bearing on operational requirements for an special investigation you have been asked to undertake. Furthermore, that this investigation involves going ‘under cover’ and hence a certain amount of personal risk, both mental and physical.” He stopped talking as the receptionist entered the office. 

 

 

“Can I get the gentleman some coffee, Sir?” 

 

 

“Mr. Williams?” 

 

 

“Er, no thank you, I’m fine.” 

 

 

“Just for me then please Susan, and hold my calls for half an hour.” 

 

 

Williams turned back to face the doctor but Whittaker got up and moved to the front of the desk, perching himself on the corner next to him as he continued. 

 

 

“Now then, Mr Williams; I’ve taken a look through your files. I have consulted my colleague, Doctor Handley; I have also perused the notes that DCI Brant obtained from the hospital in 1963 regarding your prolonged disassociative – that is to say, fugue - state at the age of twelve. After the accident, of course. And I have to say, Mr. Williams, taking all into consideration, that I really can’t recommend this. You have a history of such problems. The pattern seems to be consistent: externally, a disassociative fugue; internally - by your own admission - some kind of confused fantasy; a past or future world where everything is both perfect and controllable. The last such episode was only six months ago, I understand.” 

 

 

“Ah, thank you Susan,” he said as the door opened. He stood up and reached forward for his coffee. The receptionist smiled at Williams as she handed Whittaker his cup, “Are you sure? No?” then left, looking back once more.

 

 

Whittaker looked from Williams to the door quizzically before continuing. “Where was I? Ah yes, ‘perfect and controllable.’ Not words I’ve found go together very often in the real world, I’m afraid,” he added dryly. “And this business ...”

 

 

“I don’t have the choice” Williams interrupted, surprising himself. He backtracked, “Well, in theory I have. But if I don’t take this, my career is over. Pen-pushing for the next fifteen years.” He looked up at Whittaker and smiled wryly. “I used to think that was what I wanted; you know, organising things at the centre. Designing procedures, determining best practice. But it does wear off. And I have done this kind of job before. Many times.”

 

 

“I know you’ve done this before, Mr Williams, but there were problems on several occasions, as I’m sure you recall. Particularly the last time, I understand?” He stared penetratingly at Williams. “You were sent to see my colleague, Doctor Handley, straight from the hospital. Now, despite the immediate trigger of the operational stress you were under at the time, she has suggested in her notes that one of your problems is actually nothing to do with the work situation. For a start, she feels there’s some unresolved business about your father, although apparently you refused to discuss the matter with her. However, she suggests that in the main it’s simply self-hate, probably caused by a traumatic incident in your past. Specifically,“ Whittaker said severely, looking at him over his glasses “The episode when you were twelve.” 

 

 

Williams flinched. The episode when he was twelve was something he’d buried very deep indeed.

 

 

Whittaker looked at him closely, then continued. “Well, nothing in this field is ever simple of course, but... Anyway, you indicated to Doctor Handley that you feel your behaviour at the time to be contemptible. 

 

 

“Now that’s a little harsh, I feel; the coach crash, losing both parents, was clearly traumatic, even if retreating to fugue was a little ... more ... of a reaction than might have been expected. However, what’s important here is how you, yourself, feel about it now. For example, do those feelings, that bereaved twelve-year-old boy’s feelings, still bother you? Are you happy with yourself?” 

 

 

Whittaker leaned towards him. “Do you still feel you let yourself down in the hospital? Or have you managed to forgive yourself?” 

 

 

Williams sat back in his chair, carefully. “I ... I’ve never really thought about it,” he said, trying not to think about it now.

 

 

Few people knew that the real “incident when he was twelve” had occurred not in the hospital at all, but upon leaving it. He had never told a living soul, and as soon as he could, cut all contact with those who had witnessed his humiliation. It had quite simply been one of the worst things ever to happen to him: shootings, demotions and Pete leaving not excluded. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Twelve-year-old Sam Williams wakes up full of hope. He has looked forward to this day since... since...he’s not sure since when, but he thinks it’s a long time. He’d be excited if he was a little kid. The sun is shining, the flowers in the neat rectangular beds are bright, their rows stretching into the distance. They wave him on his way; he’s going home._

_“We’re here, Sam.” He still doesn’t understand who this woman is, sitting in the back of the car with him, or why his Mum didn’t come to the hospital to fetch him herself. “Come on, now, out you get.”_

_He steps out of the car, looking around in alarm. This is not home. The driveway lies ahead of him, framing a big house. Not his house. He stands and stares, fear and confusion vying for control._

_As he turns on the spot, searching for his mum, the strange woman reappears, but she is no longer alone. Twenty or more children appear from the house, jostling as they spill down the steps. A few adults stand casually in the doorway. And they’re all looking at Sam, watching with faint interest which grows rapidly as he starts to lose control. The children’s pinched, world-weary faces brighten at the spectacle of the boy with tears in his eyes calling to no-one, crying out desperately for help. No-one moves as the new boy breaks down completely, shrieking abuse and screaming in terror._

_Then the strange woman steps forward with the other unknown adults. “Sam, it’s OK, you’re OK.” She falls back as he kicks out at her. “Sam?” Two other adults move forward and reach for his arms but he kicks out again. They stand their ground so he hits out, small, hard unpractised fists flying, then he’s running, the gravel flashing under his feet as he heads away from the crowd, desperate for the peace of the woods._

_He looks back, trips, falls to his knees. As he looks up to the sky and shouts “Mum! Help me!” the adults stiffen in shock. The children still watch, moving closer like wolves to a wounded calf, blank cold faces hiding their pleasure. Someone sniggers as his tears fall and he whispers helplessly, “Daddy.” He crumples to the ground, sobbing, begging to go home. The murmurs and sniggers grow until he can hear nothing else. He doesn’t even hear his own screams._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Forcing the humiliating memories away Williams shuddered, grateful that the doctor didn’t know the half of it. Realising he had hunched forwards in his seat again he forced himself to relax, and sat back again. “I’m fine,” he said. “Absolutely fine. The past isn’t important; the future is all that matters.”

 

 

“Hmm.” Whittaker stood up and walked round the desk to his seat. He opened a folder and leafed through it, then looked up at Williams. “What we need to keep in mind, Mr Williams, is that - understandably - going undercover puts a profound strain on the personality, and tests the mental health of even the strongest individuals. The need to keep a false story at front of mind at all times; the fear of discovery; the isolation from all known and familiar support systems. All of these things are debilitating, and moreover, the effect is cumulative.” He closed the folder and looked up. “In other words, Mr Williams, the longer one stays, the worse it gets. And when one has - forgive me, as do you - incidents in one’s past which indicate ambivalence in one’s self-comfort levels, and a consequent lowered ability to cope with enforced distancing from one’s personal reality, then the risk of prolonged or even permanent disassociation becomes unacceptably high.”

 

 

“You’re saying it’s dangerous. That I might lose my grip entirely,” Williams said flatly. He had known this all along, but to hear it stated in the sort of precise and clinical terms he would normally find comforting sent a chill through every corner of his mind.

 

 

“We can never predict outcomes with exactitude, Mr. Williams, but you need to remember that it was only six months ago that you were referred to my colleague because of concerns over your extreme reaction at a time of similar stress. Not to put too fine a point on it, Mr Williams, you completely lost touch with reality from the time - Davis, was it? - drew his knife, until you came to in the hospital. _Two weeks_ later, Mr Williams.” 

 

 

_There’s something wrong with that. That’s not how it was_. He knew it wasn’t the knife that made him lose control, but he’d never known what had really caused it. 

 

 

Whittaker took his glasses off and massaged the bridge of his nose. Sighing, he replaced the glasses and made a note on his leather-bound jotter. 

 

 

“Your mental health is at serious risk, Mr. Williams. I cannot recommend you place yourself in this kind of danger at this juncture. So I am going to recommend to your superior that you not take this assignment,” he concluded, looking searchingly at Williams, who stared back in shock.

 

 

“No. That’s not possible.” Williams was frightened now. He’d come for reassurance, and was being given quite the opposite. “DCI Morgan mustn’t know I’ve come to see you. I understood this meeting would be confidential; that’s why I’m paying for this myself...” 

 

 

“Mr. Williams. _Sam_ ,” interrupted Doctor Whittaker forcefully. “I urge you to consider matters most carefully. Despite the uncertainty that always surrounds assessments of this type, I think the probability of permanent crippling of the mind, if I may put it so crudely, is, as I have indicated, unacceptably high. I believe that the only way in which it would be safe for you, personally, ever to contemplate a further undercover operation would be to undergo a course of counselling, aimed at resolving for you some of those incidents in your earlier life which have led to this unfortunate situation.“

 

 

“You have unrealistically high expectations of yourself and of the world about you, Mr Williams, to which nothing, and no-one, can measure up. Those expectations need to be addressed and managed before you can begin to consider yourself ready for further operations.” 

 

 

This could have been an opening for the subject of changing his whole personality, Williams realised, but in the light of the doctor’s attitude to his going undercover at all, he felt it unwise to mention it, confining himself to asking how long such a course of counselling might take. 

 

 

“At least six months, Mr Williams. Two years is more common in cases of long standing such as this.”

 

 

“That’s just not possible,” Williams said agitatedly, pushing his chair aside as he got up to leave. “I’m going in a few days. Forget it. I shouldn’t have come.” He moved towards the door. Gripping the door handle to calm himself he looked back at Whittaker. “And if I find that Morgan has heard about this conversation I will be reporting you to your professional body,” he said pointedly. 

 

 

_That’s if I remember who you are when I get back._


	4. Thursday

** THURSDAY MORNING **

 

 

 

Driving back from the doctor’s office, Williams faced up to the fact that one of the most respected psychologists in the North of England had just told him he was risking his sanity, permanently, if he ever went undercover again. 

 

 

The advice did not sit comfortably with the fact that, unless he really wanted to ruin his career, he was doing just that in three days time, but he knew it wasn’t enough to change his mind. If this was going to be his last chance, he was going to grab it for once: stop being a passive victim of circumstance, roll back the years of isolation and increasing strain and start again. 

 

 

This time he was going to face life with a personality he had chosen himself. The one he had at present was not so much chosen or evolved by its owner as thrown in his face and tied round his neck by circumstances. He smiled to himself as the sentiment came out in the very words Pete had used.

 

 

Well, it was all going to change now. Susan’s reaction to his smile had been a pleasant surprise; perhaps he really could use other people’s perceptions to help him change the way he was.

 

 

The lights were on his side for once, and he arrived at the office only a few minutes after his normal Thursday start time. Walking straight past his own office on his way to the weekly team meeting, Williams wondered if Whittaker had called Morgan. The doctor might feel that his duty to Williams’ interests - as he saw them - obliged him to breach confidentiality and advise Morgan to stop the operation. 

 

 

Williams hesitated outside the office. He knew Morgan would never do that, but he might find someone else to send, even at such short notice, and then Williams would lose his last chance for a new beginning, away from Morgan.

 

 

Noticing the time, he fixed his thoughts resolutely on the first item on the agenda, opened the door and stepped decisively into the room. Morgan looked at him oddly as he walked to the empty chair at the end of the table. Williams smiled briefly, his normal tight lower-face-only work smile. “Sorry, everybody. Alarm didn’t go off.” He held his breath as he sat down casually. 

 

 

Morgan nodded. “We’re at Item Two, Sam. Mark, if you’d like to lead off?”

 

 

The meeting seemed to drag on longer than usual, although Morgan took them through the agenda with his usual brisk efficiency. Knowing he was not going to be here when the audits, overviews and other operations were implemented made it hard to remain focussed, and as the talk continued into the second hour, Williams felt his attention drifting. He really needed to talk to someone about his ideas for the “personality change”, but he was on his own. He was used to that, of course, especially since Pete had moved on, but it didn’t make it any easier. Yet again, he wished he could phone Pete, but Pete didn’t have the sort of boss who allowed personal calls at work.

 

 

A sudden shuffling around the table brought him back to the present. He looked around, hoping he hadn’t missed anything important. People were discreetly collecting up papers and putting away pens, as Morgan spoke briskly.

 

 

“OK, David, thanks for that. One last item: the new man at ‘D’ division is DCI George Felling. He started last week, replacing Sweetman.” He shuffled his papers together. “Right then, that brings us to “Any Other Business”. John, David, Mark? ... Sam?” 

 

 

To Williams’ relief, heads were being shaken all round the table. “OK then, that wraps it up for today, thank you everybody. Same time next week. Sam, if you could just stay a moment?”

 

 

Williams waited uncomfortably as the other three filed out, looking back at him curiously. Morgan closed the door and came back to the table. 

 

 

As he gathered his papers from the cup-strewn surface, he said “I thought it best not to mention anything about your operation, Sam. I think in a case like this. the fewer people who know the better. Can’t be too careful: you never know who’s got friends where.” Turning towards his desk he looked out of the window, tapping his fingers on the sill as he said “Unusual procedures, I think, Sam, for an unusual operation. On Monday I’m going to note that you’ve called in sick, and then ... “ He glanced over his shoulder at Williams and continued, “Well, we’ll sort something out from there, once we have a feeling for how long things are going to take.”

 

 

Williams had an odd feeling that something wasn’t being said, but was unsure whether it was Morgan or himself that should be saying it. In the end he stood up and picked up his folders.

 

 

“Leave those with me Sam, it will save me collecting them next week,” Morgan said, holding out a hand. 

 

 

Williams gave him the folders with some reluctance – he would have liked to know who they were going to, and hand them over himself – but he did not argue.

 

 

When he returned to his desk, someone had scribbled him a note: “Records rang, can you go down there as soon as possible. Problem with a name or something.” 

 

 

He hated going down to Records; it was dark and dusty and depressing down there in the basement, and it was where he’d first met Pete. He emptied his half-cold coffee into the sink by the machine and headed for the back stairs.

 

 

Scuffing his way down the last flight of stone steps, Williams peered cautiously round the door to the Records Department. 

 

 

“Yes?” The girl at the desk looked far too young to be a battleaxe, but she had obviously had lessons from her Granny.

 

 

“Er, Sam Williams. I got a message to come down.”

 

 

“We were expecting you here half an hour ago, Sir. Mr. Morgan said this was very important; I’ve got someone waiting specially.”

 

 

“Well, I’m sorry, but I’ve been in a meeting the past two hours with _DCI Morgan_ and he didn’t mention it.”

 

 

“That’s as may be Sir, but we need to know what name you’re going to be using. It’s quite ridiculous leaving it this late to inform us.” She looked disdainful at his lack of foresight. “We can catch up with the computer records later, but you must have your badge by Monday. Wait there a minute please.”

 

 

Williams watched with frustration as she disappeared into the dimly-lit regions behind the tatty partitioning. What was it about him that made a 21-year-old clerk think she could insult a DCI and get away with it, he wondered, irritated. He sat down to wait, tapping his pen on the chair impatiently.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Williams pushes the door open cautiously, and walks slowly into a deserted waiting area. It’s clear they don’t exactly welcome visitors down here. He stands, uncertainly, near a sign saying “Ring For Attention.” He leaves it; he’s not going to give them the chance to deliberately ignore him._

_After a few minutes, a man several years younger than himself appears. Same height as Williams, slightly too much dark curly hair, softly rounded physique, just this side of chubby. Rather a sweet face, with a bright, genuine-looking smile._

_“Help you, mate?” He steps forward to take the requisition Williams holds out, glancing over it quickly. “Oh, yes, heard about this one.” He looks up at Williams with what looks like respect. “Your notes go back years, mate, ’s getting difficult making up stuff for you that you haven’t got in there already.”_

_“I’m sorry?” Williams speaks a little stiffly. He doesn’t know this man’s rank, but he can’t be very senior. “I’m not with you - ‘making up stuff’?”_

_“Well, yeah, didn’t you know?” The man looks at him in surprise. “It’s not all updated automatically on the computer, mate! In fact a lot of it never gets on the computer at all.”_

_“Not on the computer?” Williams is confused now; he somehow thought everything was on the computer._

_“Well, obviously mate, none of the really important stuff’s on there, can’t have all the progs reading it.” He waves a hand airily at the door behind him. “But what we do down here is, we keep logs on the computer of all the jobs you’ve been on. Or, should I say, the ones you’ve “been” on! See, all your time has to be accounted for, so’s when you go for a promotion they can see what you’ve been doing, right?” The young man grins encouragingly._

_“Makes a bit of a mockery of ‘undercover’, though, don’t you think,” he went on, “if all your time away is logged as undercover for any junior programmer straight out of University to find!”_

_Williams reels under the flow of words, so different from his own careful, watchful style, and that of his colleagues in the special operations department. The young man continues to talk, turning towards an inner office and beckoning Williams to follow._

_“So what we do is, we invent jobs. Copy them from other officers usually, change a few details, you know how it goes. But it means you end up with a complete record, so your casual observer, as it were, can’t tell you’ve actually been out doing things you’re never going to talk about for the last six weeks.” They push through the double doors, and Williams looks around the dreary office and its inhabitants with faint distaste. “But your record, like I say, it’s getting difficult to make up anything new. You’ve got more made up stuff on there than real stuff.”_

_The chatty stranger plumps himself down onto a chair at what is presumably his own desk – it’s casual and welcoming like the man himself – and gestures to Williams to take the chair from the unoccupied desk next to it._

_Williams is normally reserved to the point of rudeness, but the ebullience and sheer easy friendliness of the man - “Oh sorry, Pete Martin, pleased to meet you, mate” – is like a warm bath, soothing mental muscles he hadn’t realised he’s been keeping taut._

_Jolted out of his usual state of abnormal calm, he even jokes back, tentatively. “So if you’re a programmer, how come you haven’t got leather sandals, with socks, like all the others? And a beard you’ve been growing since you were six?”_

_To his faint relief, his new maybe-friend laughs. “Different university, mate. All Oxbridge, that lot. UMIST, me - Electronics Engineering. Did a bit of programming for my project, decided that was the future, and here I am.” The man looked assessingly at him for a moment before saying, lightly, “Got some dark red cords at home though if that makes you feel better. I’ll wear ‘em next time you’re coming down.”_

_Williams feels faintly uncomfortable for some reason. “Erm, thanks, but don’t worry on my account.” Perhaps he just isn’t used to people being friendly. “Anyway, DCI Morgan sent me down. I need to get some papers for a job I’m going on next month. He says you’ve had all the details.”_

_It takes off from there. Pete Martin and Sam Williams meet for a drink after work once or twice a week; they chat about their respective jobs, and speculate about gadgets and other wonders of the future. One day, during one of Pete’s more exuberant flights of rhetoric, Williams hears himself laughing and it crosses his mind that he’s actually happy. The laugh softens into a smile and it occurs to him that he’s getting used to those. He’s got a friend, he realises; lonely, reserved Sam Williams has an actual friend._

 

 

* * *

 

 

When the fierce young woman returned, Williams barely heard her opening volley - “He says he’s busy now, you’re going to have to wait a while.”

 

 

He stood and turned towards her, still smiling at the memory of Pete’s guileless way with words. Like Susan before, her eyes widened. Clearly changing her mind about sitting behind her desk, she leaned against the corner nearest to where he stood and smiled up at him. “I’ll tell you what, Sir, if you just sit back down a minute, I’ll get you a cup of coffee, and then I’ll go and chase him up again for you. He’s only being difficult.”

 

 

Matters were resolved quite quickly after that; it seemed he was not the only person this girl knew how to order about. By the time he left the gloomy basement twenty minutes later, his transfer papers were typed up in triplicate and his badge had been ordered. He could collect it on Friday afternoon.

 

 

_Well, that worked then_ , he thought, impressed despite himself. _Even if it wasn’t planned. Perhaps I should have tried that years ago._

 

 

But he knew he’d never had the nerve, before. Once, years ago, a colleague, braver than the others or perhaps just drunk, had said to him “You’re so lucky, Sam, you’ve only got to smile at women and they melt all over the floor. But then you ruin it, you open your cold arrogant mouth and they freeze up quicker than Christmas. Be _nice_ to them, Sam! Nice is not weak; nice is good.”

 

 

He had not known quite what to say, and had filed the information for possible future action. 

 

 

But then a bright, cheeky temp had stood too close and told him confidingly that he had a very ... _sexy_ ... smile. She’d grinned at his obvious confusion, and the comment had frightened him so much that he had kept his face carefully schooled at all times since, determined not to give anyone else the chance to take him less than _seriously_. 

 

 

The result, predictably and satisfactorily, had been that most people took him very seriously indeed, and had long since given up trying to take him any other way. It could be lonely though. 

 

 

Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt, he thought, if while he was at ‘A’ Division with Hunt’s more ‘primitive’ people, he were to smile more. In fact, from what he had seen this morning, it might positively help. Providing there were women in the department of course, which didn’t seem too likely. 

 

 

And assuming DCI Hunt had a soft spot for a sexy smile, which also seemed less than probable. 

 

 

So in other words, it wouldn’t help at all. _Oh well, it was a good idea while it lasted. Worth remembering though_ , he thought, mentally labelling it anyway: Sam Tyler’s smile.

 

 

Sitting alone with his lunchtime sandwich, Williams reflected on the morning and tried to pull together his thoughts on the new personality. His hand ached with the volume of notes he was busy making about the way Sam Tyler was going to be, while around him the gloomy room echoed with successive waves of people arriving for lunch. He did not notice each group sweeping its collective glance over him before deciding to sit elsewhere, something about his little notebook and the cramped intense way he hunched over it making it clear that company was neither expected nor required.

 

 

Oblivious to the crowds moving around him, he summarised: Sam Tyler was going to be quite different from Sam Williams in a number of very important ways. He planned to think later about how he would relate to women in his new role, but when it came to dealing with men, Sam Tyler was going to throw his weight around whenever necessary. He would challenge DCI Hunt on a man-to-man, almost primal, basis. All intelligence from ‘A’ division indicated that the man allowed his officers considerable latitude provided they performed adequately.

 

 

Sam Tyler was also going to shout. Williams had always despised himself for not being able to raise his voice. It came from those years in the Home: shouting in St Barnabas’ Home for Orphaned Children got you nothing but the cane, and the cold bedroom, and no tea. 

 

 

So Tyler was going to shoot his mouth off if he felt like it, and he was going to answer back to Hunt whenever he wanted. Williams fretted briefly over how that would fit in with the need to be inconspicuous, until he realised that with a boss like Hunt, being polite and forbearing would itself presumably stand out as unusual. No DI worth his salt would lie down and take the kind of bullying Hunt was known to hand out, and Tyler certainly wasn’t going to.

 

 

In some ways, though, Sam Tyler should be softer than Sam Williams. With witnesses, and even suspects, he was going to be more human. Williams knew he’d fallen into the contemptible habit of being clever with witnesses, learning from Morgan its occasional effectiveness but, like Morgan, lazily over-using the device. By contrast, Tyler was going to present himself as a friendly and reasonable man, and he would show them respect. “I’d like you to call me Sam,” he was going to say. 

 

 

In short, Sam Tyler at work was going to be the man Williams had always wanted to be: still careful with detail - picky, as someone on the receiving end once described it; always highly professional and concerned with best practice; but more flexible and human with it. All in all a better officer, if he could manage it.

 

 

He sighed as he got up, moving his crockery to the trolley. _That’s the crunch point, isn’t it. If I can manage it_. He knew he was going to be fighting on all sides: with DCI Hunt over treating witnesses and even suspects with humanity; with Morgan over being allowed to run the operation in his own way; and not least, with himself, every time he almost forgot who he was supposed to be. To help him remember _that_ , he was considering changing the way he spoke as Sam Tyler, perhaps using a slightly different accent, but he was just starting to realise how much effort that would take, and he still had a lot of work to do on learning the cover story.

 

 

He couldn’t help wondering if along the way he was going to discover some aspects of his own character that had been covered up for years. It was an uneasy thought.

 

 

Seeing the sunshine outside as he emerged from the dusty stairwell, he decided to go for a short walk before heading back to his desk. Walking around the tidy streets of Hyde, he studied the faces of the other pedestrians, trying to spot who was confident and comfortable in themselves, and who was not, and what the visible clues were. It was in the walk, he decided, the angle of the hips and even the tilt of the head. Confident people had a loose, easy walk and they looked straight ahead as they walked, meeting others’ eyes calmly.

 

 

Back in his office, he spent an hour trying to concentrate on the briefing papers Morgan had given him. Eventually he gave up, and turned back to his “Sam Tyler” notebook, adding another five pages of ideas by the time movements in the corridor alerted him to the fact that it was time to go home.

 

 

 

** THURSDAY EVENING **

 

 

 

Cleaning the fridge later that night, ready for moving out on Monday, Williams realised that everything he’d added to his notes this afternoon had been concerned with procedure and office communication. Remembering that he’d planned to think about how Sam Tyler would be with women, he wondered where to start.

 

 

He knew the change would have to be deeper and more dramatic than just a new smile, but Sam Williams did not understand women; sometimes he feared he never would. 

 

 

“I’m always nice,” he’d protested to Pete after a particularly sharp rebuff from a young woman he’d got talking to at the library. “I always treat them like they’re intelligent reasoning beings. Some of the ones I meet at work actually are, so I’m not being patronising or anything.” Enjoying the conversation in the library, he had very daringly suggested dinner and had been resigned but nonetheless disappointed when she’d given him a cool smile and remarked that she _didn’t_ think so, thank you very much. 

 

 

“But they always seem to want more than that,” he went on, aggrieved. “It’s as if you’re supposed to acknowledge that they’re female but ignore it at the same time. I don’t know how to do that. Does everyone have that problem, or is it just me?” 

 

 

Pete had laughed. “No good asking me, mate, you know I don’t have a way with women! But my sister - Julie, the one that’s getting married - she says women like a man that’s _‘confident but friendly’._ ” He looked at Williams speculatively. “And she thinks you’re gorgeous. She actually said that, the cheeky cow.” 

 

 

Moving the neat row of condiment jars to clean under them, he thought about that one. _Confident but friendly_. Sam Tyler was going to have to _believe_ in the sexy smile, and approach women with direct, cheerful confidence. Williams was not sure if he was looking forward to it. Whether he was or not, he thought, Sam Tyler definitely was going to be as charming as he knew how with women. 

 

 

He still wasn’t sure if he could manage that, but with the kind of response he’d got from Susan and the girl in Records, he wondered if the confidence might develop on a sort of feedback loop. Not that he would become involved with anyone from the station of course - he had very strong views on mixing work and private life - and he couldn’t have a serious relationship with anyone, as he would need to be telling her lies about almost everything, starting with his name and date of birth.

 

 

But something, some _one_ , just so he didn’t have to go home alone to an empty flat every night. He’d had enough of being on his own all the time; he had begun to fear he always would be, and it was not something he felt he could look forward to. Not and stay sane, anyway.

 

 

Closing the fridge door on half a pint of milk and Friday’s dinner ingredients he looked up at the clock – 9:15, not too late to try ringing Pete. 

 

 

The foreign student hadn’t learnt much English since yesterday, but the words he did know were used effectively enough. “I not know this Pete. I not see this Pete. He not come to door. In Novi Sad is not this nuisance to phone every night.” There hadn’t been much he could say to that. Sitting down to watch the end of the News, he did his best not to calculate the days since he had last spoken to Pete, nor the hours until he would meet his temporary new DCI.

 

 

 

 

 

** THURSDAY NIGHT **

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Williams lies in his bed, half-smiling in his sleep.

 

 

_The sun is shining fiercely above. He hasn’t seen the sun for so long, and that’s not the only thing that is good about today. He’s going home at last._

_The nurse sits down on the end of his bed. He knows they’re not really allowed to do that, but it’s the friendly one today. She’s nice; she gives him sweets sometimes. She’s not really allowed to do that either._

_She has a big bright smile on her face. “I’ve got good news for you, Sam. The doctors have decided they’ve done everything they can for you, and now it’s time for you to get on with your life. It’s been lovely having you here, but I’m really pleased for you that you’ve made so much progress. You’re going to the Home tomorrow. Everything is ready for you there.”_

_She stands up gracefully and moves towards him as if to hug him, but something makes her stop. She looks at him compassionately and says merely, “You need to pack your bag, Sam. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.“_

_* * *_

_The sky is so bright after weeks indoors that he closes his eyes to protect them. He’s twelve years old, and going home at last._

_When he wakes up he sees trees flashing past the window; there’s a strange crunching noise under the wheels._

_The car draws up by a row of trees and a rather dilapidated building. Sammy gets out of the car and looks around, confused. The woman – he still does not understand who she is – gets out too._

_“Where are we? Why are we here? Where’s Mum?”_

_“This is where you’re going to live now, Sam. There are very kind people here to look after you. You’ll make lots of friends; look, they’ve come out to meet you. We know you’ll be very happy here, when you get used to it.”_

__Williams goes rigid in his bed; he mutters loudly, “No, no, no!” __

_“NO! I want to go home. I want to see Mum!“_

_“But Sam - you know that’s not possible. We’ve explained all this to you. Your Mum isn’t there any more: she died, Sam, you know that. You’re only twelve years old; you have to live here.“_

_“I want to go home! I want to go to my house!”_

_“Sam, it’s not your house any more; someone else lives there now. You can’t live by yourself, Sam, you have to live here, where people can look after you. Now then, let’s go in and meet some people, shall we?”_

_And then he’s running, screaming, begging, kicking. “Let me go home! Please! I want to go home!”_

_“No, Sam!”_

_“Stop him!”_

_“Grab the little...”_

_Begging, sobbing, whispering. “I want to go home.”_

_A man who looks a bit like Daddy walks up to him. “It’s OK, Sam, you’re quite safe. You need to come with me, Sam. Come on now.”_

 

 

Williams smiles through the tears, and turns over in his bed.


	5. Friday

** FRIDAY MORNING **

 

 

 

Williams spent his last morning in the office clearing out his desk. The case review files had gone to Morgan after the team meeting yesterday. Only the procedure templates and forensic techniques exploratory papers remained, together with some ideas he’d scribbled down for a competition Pete had dreamed up months ago. Those he decided to keep to himself, but most of it he was happy to leave in the out-tray for Morgan to re-assign. 

 

 

Looking through the results of six months’ careful work, he took copies of some of the papers he was leaving, in case he needed to prove ownership of the ideas later. It might help to persuade Morgan he’d done his bit here and deserved permanent reassignment to operations. By the time Morgan put his head round the door at 11:30, Williams was nearly finished. He looked up in surprise. “Sir?”

 

 

“Ah, Sam, still here. All set then? Good. Three o’clock in my office please, Sam. I won’t keep you long; I dare say you’d like to get off early for once.” Morgan chuckled dryly.

 

 

Williams’ heart sank. “Sir, is that necessary? I was hoping... erm, what I mean is, I thought we’d sorted everything out the key points on Wednesday. And I’ve spent quite a lot of time filling in the details.” He’d hoped to get away at lunchtime to pack his stuff and finish cleaning up the flat before the weekend. He still had some idea of phoning Pete, maybe even going to London for the weekend.

 

 

“Of course it’s necessary, Sam, I wouldn’t ask otherwise.” Morgan looked surprised at the question. “It won’t take long, we just need to run through a few details, so - three o’clock, if you wouldn’t mind,” he reiterated firmly. “We need to make sure we’re all on the same sheet of paper.”

 

 

 

 

** FRIDAY AFTERNOON **

 

 

 

Returning resignedly to his office after an early lunch, Williams looked around at the empty shelves. What was he supposed to do between now and three o’ clock, he wondered in annoyance. After a few moments reflection he got out his “Tyler Personality – Planning” notebook, now half full. Sitting down with a sigh, he started to read. 

 

 

As he read, he realised that this really could work, if he just kept his head and remembered who he was supposed to be. After all, the smiling business had worked on Doctor Whittaker’s secretary and on the apprentice harpy in Records, so maybe the rest of it could work as well. Perhaps if he worked hard at talking and acting like a very ordinary, friendly, confident man with no particular hangups, the new people around him might simply accept him at face value. He might even come to believe in it himself one day.

 

 

Glancing at his watch just before three o’ clock, he set off for Morgan’s office, and found him returning from the coffee machine.

 

 

“Ah, Sam. Thanks for coming. Coffee?”

 

 

Williams got himself a cup of tea from the machine and they walked back along the corridor together. He knew Morgan had called this meeting more to check on his level of readiness than to discuss anything specific, so he waited for Morgan to start the conversation. 

 

 

“Now Sam, as you know, in order to get you into ‘A’ Division as Hunt’s new DI, we had to mitigate the possible negative implications of your being available at such short notice, by making sure we could present you as the best.” 

 

 

“Yes, Sir, I remember,” Williams said politely, sighing inside. They entered Morgan’s office and sat down on either side of the desk. Williams had never asked who Morgan had influence over to get an office and a desk that were somehow twice as big as those of the other DCIs. 

 

 

In unconscious imitation of his former superior, Williams laid out his pens neatly on the highly polished surface, exactly perpendicular to the front edge. He caught himself wondering if DCI Hunt did the same thing. It didn’t seem likely.

 

 

“...So, in pursuit of that end, I’ve had Records pull together various pieces and file them under the Tyler identity. As you know, one of their jobs is to keep records of what officers were supposedly doing, whilst in reality they were away from the station for several months undercover.”

 

 

He did know. He’d had it demonstrated to him by the man whose idea it was. He also knew that saying so would not spare him the detailed explanation, because implementing the system had been Morgan’s new-broom project soon after his arrival, and he liked people to remember that. 

 

 

“The idea being, as I know you’re aware,” Morgan continued, ”that there are no suspicious gaps in their career records. You’ll need to study these notes of course - I’m having copies run off for you as we speak, so you can look at them over the weekend. Now, we’ve already covered the issue of your being available at short notice - Records have that down as a broken left leg by the way - so that just leaves...”

 

 

Williams was tired and jittery, and Morgan always did like making himself sound important by saying the same thing five times over, the last three in increasingly obscure terms. As Morgan droned on, Williams for once let his mind drift. Thinking about what Morgan called the “undercover alibi” records led him inexorably back to Pete. 

 

 

The key to their unlikely friendship had been their shared love of looking to the future, of trying to improve the world by imagining new, better, faster ways of doing things. They even had a competition. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_They take a week to write out all the things they each want to see in an ideal future world: new gadgets and tools; new things for computers to do; even books, films, music._

_Tonight is judging night; loser buys the drinks._

_When Williams loses the first round, Pete suggests a bottle of red, to go with the pizza. “Come on, Sam, let your hair down a bit.” He sniggers. “What there is of it.”_

_They have played this game before so the riposte comes automatically as he beckons the waiter: “Well, at least I don’t have ..._ curls. _”_

_When the wine arrives, Pete pours them each a glass, and they move onto the second round. Williams has thought hard about the gadgets and invented a couple he is quite pleased with, but he hasn’t written down anything about the miniature phone-in-a-pocket. That’s too personal._

_In between rounds, they order more wine and talk about all aspects of the future. Given Pete’s job, it’s a natural pre-occupation; Williams sets out his visions for the future of policing, and Pete counters with his predictions of developments in data processing._

_Pete talks intensely, blue eyes flashing as he leans over the table, pouring the wine. “Information, Sam. Information, not just data, that’s the future, mate. All the information in the world, all on computers, ready to go.”_

_Williams laughs so hard he splutters his wine. When he calms down enough to breathe properly he says, “Ready to go where? Once it’s on the computer it’s gone for good, as far as I can see. It’s getting it out again that’s the hard part, Pete, what are you going to do about that?”_

_“Ah, well, that is the slight drawback at the moment, “ Pete replies, grinning back. ”But people are working on it. In fact, I’d like to have a go at designing a data retrieval engine myself one day, I reckon that would be really good. Here, you need a top-up, the last lot went all over the table.” He raises his glass. “To information not data!”_

_Williams smiles at Pete’s enthusiasm, and raises his own glass in agreement. “To the future!” Sometimes he can’t believe this is him, laughing, smiling, drinking, joking._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Williams shuddered. Trying not to remember just how much wine Pete had managed to get him to drink that night, and the state he’d been in next morning, he dragged his attention firmly back to Morgan.

 

 

Eerily, he was talking about the dangers of drinking too much. 

 

 

“...and I’m so proud of you, Sam, that you haven’t succumbed to alcohol the way I’ve seen so many undercover officers do.”

 

 

Williams decided not to explain that he’d been so scared of getting drunk again, he’d invented an alcohol allergy to get round the problem. Two weeks of puking all over people’s boots (to order - it was amazing what you could learn in a Children’s Home) and they eventually stop trying to persuade you to have a drink. Even Davis had been reluctantly impressed.

 

 

“So, are you ready to go, Sam? All packed up? Got your tape recorder? Although they’ve probably got their own; even over there in the last century they must have tape recorders in all the interview rooms.”

 

 

Williams smiled briefly. From everything Morgan had told him about Hunt, he wasn’t so sure. He’d packed his own just in case, together with a supply of the new tiny cassettes.

 

 

“Look, don’t worry, Sam, I know you can do this. I know I’ve said it before, but lying in a coma you could out-perform that fool Hunt at his best. I have total confidence in you. And remember, Sam: you need to keep your eye on the prize and sort this out for us as quickly as you can, because I don’t want you over there a week longer than is strictly necessary. As soon as you get the evidence we need, we can bring you home.”

 

 

Morgan finally ran out of things to say, and Williams cautiously got up to go. 

 

 

“Oh, one last thing, Sam. I know you understand this, but it does bear saying again. You don’t phone here unless it’s an emergency. I’ll keep this line free for you; it’s new, no-one else has the number. But remember the rules: I call you. There’s an extension in Hunt’s outer office which doesn’t seem to be used, on the desk that will probably be yours. I’ll ring you on that occasionally, after you’ve let me know your rota. There’s also a phone in the pub these people use, on the corner of the bar. You can’t miss that one - it’s red, rather appropriate. You just need to make sure you get to it first.”

 

 

Williams had to wonder, if Morgan had the organisation and the people to get all this information, why he didn’t just use that organisation to get the evidence he needed against Hunt. Someone had even managed to get a phone put into the flat they’d rented for him, in six days rather than the usual six weeks, and how they had achieved that he hadn’t dared ask. He tried once again to edge towards the door, but Morgan still had more to say.

 

 

“Bear in mind, Sam, there will be times when you get fed up with it all, and you will be tempted to ring us. And of course, unlike the usual type of operation, the phone will be right there on your desk. But that just makes it all the more important to remember the rules, Sam.” 

 

 

At last, Morgan stood up. He shook Williams’ hand briskly, patted him briefly on the shoulder and said, “I’ll send someone round on Monday morning with your badge. It should have been ready by now but those fools in Records got it wrong. Take care, Sam. Remember, we’re all very proud of you, and I know you can do this.”

 

 

Free at last, Williams walked back to his own office. Taking a last look round at the empty shelves, he wondered how long it would be before he came back. Deciding that was the least of his worries at this particular moment, he picked up his boxes of papers and took them down to the car. Even this was being left behind, as it was registered in his real name. That was annoying, but it was standard procedure and could not be helped. 

 

 

As he drove the familiar route for the last time he decided he was definitely going to ring Pete this evening. It was not too late to visit Pete in London for the weekend. He had never done it before, but there seemed to be no reason why he shouldn’t, and one of the unexpected results of thinking about the “new personality” had been to make him think about how he could change his everyday existence and personality, even between operations. 

 

 

 

 

** FRIDAY EVENING **

 

 

 

At 9-30 he had to concede defeat. Pete’s landlady had taken to answering the phone with a curt “He’s not here,” before Williams had a chance to speak. The foreign student had said much the same, twice, but with what were presumably Slovak swear words tacked on fore and aft. He decided to go to bed early, in faint hopes of Pete actually getting the message and phoning tomorrow morning. He could still go, and he wanted to go: he knew now that he owed Pete an apology, probably several apologies, for taking him for granted and not showing appreciation for his constant support and friendship.

 

 

 

 

** FRIDAY NIGHT **

 

 

* * *

 

 

As the clock strikes eleven Williams lies flat on his back, eyes flickering rapidly under the lids.

 

 

_“Come on, it won’t hurt to have another glass just for once.”_

_In this crazy competition of theirs, Pete has judged himself the winner of every round so far, on absolutely no grounds at all. Williams needs to work hard to catch up, and Pete has decided he has to take a drink for every round lost._

_He stares fuzzily across the table at Pete and tries to focus. His pizza lies half-eaten on the plate and his wine glass is empty again. He picks vaguely at his garlic bread as he watches the wine swirling into the glass._

_“See, that’s it, Sam – you’ve got no imagination,” said Pete. He seems to be replying to something Williams doesn’t remember saying. “Too rooted in all your procedures and processes. You don’t think about other people, what they want.”_

_Williams is having to lean on to the table now to keep himself something approaching upright, but this gets through the wine fog and he splutters indignantly, almost dropping his drink._

_“I have got ’magin, nnnation. I have. C’n p... p... prove it. I can immm..., ‘gine, all stuff, sorts of stuff. Stuff don’t you know about, ’cos I’ve, ’cos you...Phone. There. Phone. ’N... pocket.” He tries to slap the table for emphasis but his elbow slips and he nearly falls off the chair. Ignoring this, he grabs the table again and grins foolishly. “See? ’Gination, got gim...in...ation.”_

_Pete pours the wine into the water tumbler this time; it looks less fragile._

_“You silly sod,” He smiles broadly at the state Williams is in. “A phone in your pocket? What about the wire, you daft dick?”_

_“Wire? No wire. Not co...connec... joined. Pocket.“_

_“What do you mean, no wires? I thought I was the one with the futuristic ideas, but for God’s sake, Sam, that takes the biscuit!”_

_“Radios not wires, not... don’t have wires!” His attempts to draw radio masts in the air are vague but large and determined._

_Pete laughs kindly. “You’re drunk, my Sam. Completely fallen over the edge of reality.” He carefully moves Williams’ glass away from the edge. “And why would you want a phone in your pocket anyway?”_

_“So can hide, hide it and I ... safe. Keep ... safe.”_

_A look that could almost be pain crosses Pete’s face. “Sam, you’re not in the Home now – you’re a DI, a grown man, no-one’s going to nick your stuff, you daft bugger!” He looks closely at Williams, and finally understands how very drunk he is. “Come on my Sam, time to go now. Stand up. D’you need a hand?”_

_“Want phone. Little teeny...” Williams stops, his eyes are glazing over rapidly. He tries once more, very carefully. “Weeny, teeny phone, ’n pock, pocket. Jus’ mine, not no-one’s else. Oh God, I can’t...” Just before his head hits the table he pulls himself together and falls back in his chair. “Pete ... don’t feel well, want to ... .” He tries to stand, but as he grabs the table for support he pulls the tablecloth. Pete moves round the table and gets to him before he has the whole lot on the floor._

_“OK, soldier, let’s get you home.” The other patrons turn to stare as Williams stumbles across the room clinging to Pete. Pete has an arm round his waist, and Williams has his head on Pete’s shoulder, one arm slung round his neck, the other dangling loose at his side. Before they reach the door he gives up all efforts at co-ordinating his feet and Pete is simply pulling him along._

_When he finally surfaces, he’s lying face-down and fully-clothed on his bed. There’s a note on the table._

__

> "Morning Sam, hope you’re not feeling too bad, sorry about that. I’ll get someone to tell Morgan you’ve phoned in sick. Ring me later."

_Williams groans and stands up very slowly and carefully, moving in the general direction of the kitchen, but ready to stagger to the bathroom if necessary. Never again, he vows. Never._

 

 

Williams groans and grabs the pillow, holding it tight against his chest.

 

 

* * *


	6. Saturday

** SATURDAY MORNING **

 

 

 

Williams woke up early on Saturday, stretching slowly in the restful silence. Something was missing. Turning onto his back, he stared at the ceiling as he tried to work it out, but nothing came to mind. Something unexpected was also present – a holiday feeling? 

 

 

He thought about that one for a while. He was hardly about to take off for the Costa del Sol. He was going into an important, career-defining and possibly sanity-busting undercover operation, so why the feeling of release from everyday cares? Unable to identify the cause, but relishing the stillness and sense of peace he decided to give himself the luxury of staying in bed for another ten minutes. 

 

 

He was awoken three hours later by the phone ringing. Morgan. As he listened Williams felt an indistinct sense of dread enveloping him, although there was nothing in Morgan’s words or manner to give reason for it.

 

 

“Sam, sorry to bother you on a weekend, but I just wanted to check what time you’re going in on Monday. Hunt starts work early – give him his due, he’s always in before his team – so I think you should be there by 8:30.”

 

 

Now Williams recognised what had been missing, because it was back. He’d never realised before that his constant faint feelings of fear and inadequacy were actually caused, or perhaps magnified, by Morgan.

 

 

He held the receiver away from his face and forced himself to slow his breathing before answering. “That sounds fine, Sir. I’m just packing up today, and then tomorrow I pick up the car.”

 

 

“Excellent, Sam, well done. Feel ready for this?”

 

 

Williams’ gut twisted as he kept his voice calm. “Of course, Sir. Frank. Looking forward to it in fact.”

 

 

“Good man. Till Monday, then. Seven OK for you?”

 

 

“Sir?”

 

 

“With your new badge, Sam. Wish you well, that sort of thing. I’m losing my best man for six months; I want to see you off personally, as it were.”

 

 

“Thank you Sir, that’s very kind. Yes, seven o’clock’s fine for me.”

 

 

Well, at least now he knew what had been missing when he woke up. The holiday feeling still hovered at the edges of his consciousness though, and grew stronger as he treated himself to jam on his toast. 

 

 

It wasn’t until he was clearing away his lunch things that he remembered that Pete hadn’t phoned back. He dumped the pans into hot water and tried the number yet again, trying not to picture the landlady and the Yugoslavian student in their separate rooms, ignoring the ringing in the hall. He tried to think what Pete could be doing, but concluded regretfully that it was months since he had known what Pete might be doing at any given time. 

 

 

Whatever else he might be doing, it was clear he wasn’t sitting at home waiting for anyone to ring, so Williams decided to write a short letter instead. It might be months before he would see Pete’s answer, but he could not see any other way. At least he would have done his best.

> Dear Pete,
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Just a brief note: I wanted to let you know that I will be away, if you understand what I mean, for quite a long time. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch for a while. I understand now that I should have phoned you, and I’m sorry I didn’t. I hope London is treating you well. I’ve been trying to ring you all this last week, so I hope you’re OK. Perhaps we can get together for a drink when I come back, although I don’t yet know when that will be.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> All the best,
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Sam.

**  
SATURDAY AFTERNOON  
**

 

 

 

When he’d finished washing up, he sat down at the kitchen table wondering what to do next. He couldn’t collect the car until Sunday, the flat was even cleaner than usual and the case files - his normal Saturday reading - had been handed over to Morgan. 

 

 

This stage of an operation was always the hardest, he thought. The excitement and anticipation of the planning and preparation phase had worn off, but the disconcertingly addictive fear of the operation itself had not yet taken its place. Not long now, though, he knew. His normal pre-op anxiety would only increase over the rest of the weekend, but his main feeling at the moment was still a slightly panicky excitement about taking on the Tyler personality.

 

 

He decided to go through the ‘A’ Division briefing papers one more time. No use having the personality in place if he didn’t have the facts as well.

 

 

The papers made worrying reading: reports of injuries sustained when suspects had “fallen down the stairs” or “resisted arrest”; photos taken by the police doctor showing battered faces, crushed fingers, bruised ribs. It was clear that DCI Hunt was completely out of control. Although strangely, the only photograph he had of the DCI, from the _Gazette_ , showed an individual who appeared to be very much _in_ control, both of himself and everyone and everything around him. Williams studied the picture yet again, looking closely at the long-lashed eyes burning out of the page; at the messy light-coloured hair and the grim line of the uncompromising mouth. There would be no mistaking this man when he met him. 

 

 

By the time he’d finished working his way through the rest of the pile, studying, memorising and strategising, it was still only five o’clock, and the late afternoon sun shone enticingly outside his window.

 

 

He decided to go down to the canal for an hour. It must have been months since he was last down by the water, and it would be something to fill the early evening. In the six years he was at the orphanage he’d spent many a Saturday afternoon by and under the bridge. The other boys were more interested in playing football, and he could be alone there, away from their constant teasing.

 

 

He was half-way there before he remembered that he had done the same just before the Davis job, although on that occasion it had been Pete’s idea rather than his own. 

 

 

Reaching the cut, he stood undecided on the bridge for a minute, then picked his way down the muddy path and leaned against the fence watching the water rippling gently as it murmured through the city. The tiny wavelets rippling against the concrete banks plinked and echoed in the cavernous space under the bridge, making the same muted sounds now as they had then. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_On a wet Monday afternoon, damp and miserable, Williams is watching the canal as it flows sluggishly towards the lock. Pete, he realises, is watching him. It seems an odd place for a walk. He hasn’t been to the canal much since he left the Home, but Pete, uncharacteristically, has insisted._

_Pete repeats his question and Williams answers, irritated. “It’s just as I said. I won’t be here next week. I’ve been given another undercover job.” The Davis operation, he does not add. “I’ll be gone about six weeks, starting next Monday.”_

_“And you didn’t think to mention it?” Pete asks. ”Couldn’t you have told me before now? I had... I mean I thought we ...” Seeing the blank look on Williams’ face, he dries up momentarily._

_“Well, they only told me last Tuesday; I haven’t had a chance to talk to you since then.” Williams looks round at Pete. “Is it a problem?”_

_Pete stares at him, dumbfounded. “A problem? That you’re going, or that you didn’t think to tell me?” He catches himself, visibly calming himself down, before asking more lightly “So, where are you going? What’s the job this time?”_

_Williams shifts uncomfortably. A narrowboat is just visible in the distance and he watches it emerge from the lock. The holidaymakers on board clearly know what they’re doing as the three lock workers swing the top gate shut and jump on board without ceremony. He keeps his eyes fixed on the boat as he chooses his words. “You know I can’t tell you much about it: same as usual, that’s all, nothing interesting.” The fender at the front is frayed, he notices; it looks untidy. “I’ll be gone about six weeks; I won’t be able to contact you during that time; you know the drill, just shove a note through my door and I’ll get it when I come home.”_

_“Sam.” There is an odd note to Pete’s voice, and Williams turns his attention from the boat for a moment. Pete is still watching him closely and he speaks quietly, intensely._

_“Sam, when are you going to stop?” He moves closer; he’s only four feet away, blocking William’s view of the narrowboat. “When are you going to concentrate on being yourself rather than other people all the time?”_

_“I ... I’m not sure I would know how. I’m good at this, at undercover work, I mean. They need me.”_ How are you supposed to “be yourself”, _he wonders briefly. Who else would you be? And who is “yourself” anyway? It’s not as if you can look inside and see. You just _are.__

__

__

__He dismisses the thought and watches as Pete turns impatiently away, pushing through the nettles and cow parsley to kick the broken-down fence._ _

__

__

__Pete speaks just as the boat chugs past; Williams hears the words but, distracted by the engine noise – Stuart-Turner, he notes automatically – he thinks he must have misheard. He raises a hand in reply to the girl at the tiller, then addresses his words to Pete’s rigid back._ _

__

__

__“You’re what?”_ _

__

__

__“You heard. I’m thinking about getting a new job. I’m fed up.” He’s uncharacteristically terse._ _

__

__

__“But you’ve got a great job already. Well, you’ve always said it’s great.” He’s puzzled: something has changed, but he doesn’t know what._ _

__

__

__“In my trade, Sam, if you want to stay cutting edge, you’ve got to be ready to move on.” He sighs. “I’ve told you this before. You’ve always got to look for the next challenge and make sure you’re ready for it.”_ _

__

__

__“But aren’t you challenged in this job? You just need to get them to give you something more interesting to do.”_ _

__

__

__Pete turns, moving forwards shockingly fast, and yells, right in his face: “And you need to get yourself a real life instead of all these pretend ones!”_ _

__

__

__Williams looks at him in shock. He doesn’t know what to say. “It’s not like that. It’s not,” he says feebly._ _

__

__

__“No? Are you sure?” Pete turns away again, staring at the raindrops dimpling the surface of the steel-grey water._ _

__

__

__Williams waits fifty seconds, then when he doesn’t say anything else, Williams moves towards him._ _

__

__

__“Pete...”_ _

__

__

__Pete half-turns towards him but keeps his face averted. “Just a minute, got something in my eye.” He puts a hand up to his face. After a moment he turns to look at Sam fully. “Please, no more, Sam. You’re killing yourself, I can’t bear to see it.”_ _

__

__

__There is a silence, as Williams looks at Pete, disconcerted by this new, intense version of Pete. “Well, it’s nice of you to care, Pete, but I can handle it. I can, really.”_ _

__

__

__“...Nice? Sam, I’m begging you here, please, I... don’t go. This is too much. Too much.”_ _

__

__

__Williams has never seen Pete anything less than bright and cheerful before, and he can’t understand what’s changed. He takes refuge in the formality he’s more comfortable with, but doesn’t normally use with Pete._ _

__

__

__“I’m sorry Pete, I can’t do this now. I’ve got to go, it’s my job. This is what I do.” He half-turns, takes a step away. ”Look, I need to get back to the office, I was only supposed to be out an hour.”_ _

__

__

__Pete does not move. “Sam. If you ever want to have a... a normal life, you’ll stop this now. Tell Morgan where he gets off.”_ _

__

__

__“Pete, you know I can’t do that. This_ is _my normal life. It’s all I’ve got.”__

__

__

__There is a shocked silence. Pete’s mouth is open as if to speak and his eyes are stretched wide. He closes his mouth, swallows, then tries again, his face white._ _

__

__

__“Is that really how you see it? After all this time?”_ _

__

__

__Williams looks at him, confused. “Well ... yes. What else is there?”_ _

__

__

__The expression on Pete’s face turns flat and hard; his eyes are still wide. “Well, if that’s how you see it, I won’t take up any more of your time.” He speaks over this shoulder as he starts walking in the opposite direction to the office. “Bye then. Let me know when you get back.”_ _

__

__

__Williams stands on the towpath, watching him go._ _

_* * *_

__Williams shivered, remembering how cold he had been, standing there trying to work out what Pete’s problem was, and whether he should follow him and ask. By the time he decided it was probably better not to, he was already well over the hour he’d said he would be out of the office.

 

 

It was just one more example, though, of how he lost a friend every time he went undercover. This one just hurt more than all the others put together. 

 

 

Eventually he decided to walk home, going the long way round back along the towpath. Realising for the first time that he had nothing to go home for, and nothing to stay out for, he understood at last what Pete had tried to tell him so many times. The years of undercover work had taken more than his time; while they’d given him confidence in some ways, they had stolen it in so many others. 

 

 

He resolved to have it out with Morgan after this one. He had done more than his share of these operations, and it was time he made it clear to Morgan that he would not be bullied any more.

 

 

 

 

** SATURDAY NIGHT **

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sam Williams sits up in bed, staring at the wall. He puts his hands up to shield his face.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Faces and disjointed images flash incoherently through his mind: linked, unlinked, sense, nonsense._

_And Morgan. Always Morgan._

_Arranging his pens precisely on the desk; smoothing his waistcoat; leaning over the desk; waiting, always waiting._

_Watching his hands shaking._

_Filling his head with fear and knowing. Knowing what he really is._

_* * *_

_Morgan, controlling his entire career._

_The warehouse, Peters, Max; the college, Kirby; the post office, Higgins, the old lady; the bank, Baxter, Moss, Franklin, the girl. Oh dear God, the girl._

_Forensics, procedures, paperwork. Paper job._

_* * *_

_Morgan’s a DCI, tying him down in procedures and methods and meetings until he can’t think any more._

_Hunt’s a DCI, tying down suspects with methods and beatings until they can’t think any more._

_Hunt’s on the edge._

_* * *_

_Williams is on the edge. Morgan would sack him if he knew how close to the edge he really is._

_* * *_

_Hunt’s a DCI. He looks terrifying._

_Long-lashed eyes burning out of the page; hard-edged control._

_Hunt’s a DCI. But I’m a DCI too._

_Not a real one. They just promoted you to keep you quiet. You’re not real._

_* * *_

_Hunt has a hard face and a mouth like a steel trap, staring grimly out of a newspaper report._

_This time could be the sacking._

_* * *_

_Morgan messes with his head about reports and paperwork and progressive policing._

_This time could be the last._

_* * *_

_Without the job, what could he do, where could he go? Nothing to go out for. Nothing to stay in for._

_Without the job he’s nothing at all. Nothing, and no-one._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sam Williams sits up abruptly with a look of utter shock on his face. He stares sightlessly ahead and opens his mouth as if to scream. After a minute he mutters “No, no, no,” then puts his hands over his face and slowly curls up into a tight ball, rocking.

 

 

* * *


	7. Sunday

** SUNDAY MORNING **

 

 

 

Williams woke on Sunday morning feeling groggy. He still was not sleeping well, which he knew was due to the stress of the new operation. He could only hope that once he got his feet under the table in ‘A’ Division he would be able to relax a little, at least when he was alone in his flat at night.

 

 

He got through the morning. Coffee and toast taken as slowly as possibly, washing up careful and precise, briefing papers sorted and packed in envelopes at the bottom of the Sam Tyler bags of clothes. Pete’s landlady, sarcastic twice, angry once. Lunch, using up what little food remained in the flat. Eaten slowly and washed up, slowly. 

 

 

 

 

** SUNDAY AFTERNOON **

 

 

 

He spent the afternoon in the station car park, cleaning the car that he would be using as Sam Tyler. The shadowy people organising the nuts and bolts of the operation had told him not to worry, they would find something suitable, and for some reason he’d been hoping for something big and American. He turned up as directed at two o’clock to find, not entirely to his surprise, that it was only a Rover, albeit a 3500, and that although it was nearly new it was filthy inside and out. 

 

 

He was slightly more impressed when he discovered that it had a music player, a decent 8-track, which almost made up for the fact that it was going to take him the whole afternoon to get the car fit to use. _It’s not as if I have anything else to do_ , he thought. There was even a cartridge – just one – but he was very pleased indeed to find that it was David Bowie’s ‘Hunky Dory’. _At least someone’s got some taste._

 

 

He had bought ‘Hunky Dory’ on the day it came out, and had played and replayed it for weeks on end, wearing out the stylus as he became obsessed with track four. He had even written out the lyrics as if they had some special meaning, playing the song over and over again until it was burned into his brain. It was still his favourite track of all time. 

 

 

When Williams had admitted his obsession to Pete, he’d laughed kindly. “Well, it’s no wonder, is it? I always think it’s about someone who feels like they don’t belong here, like they’re from a different planet.” He’d smiled and ruffled Williams’ hair as he stood up to go. “Now who does that remind you of?” 

 

 

Thinking back, Williams smiled ruefully. He had told Pete entirely too much about himself over the eight months or so they’d been mates, just because, for the first time ever, he could. Pete probably knew more about Sam Williams than anyone else, including, he sometimes thought, himself. In a rare, unguarded moment after closing a big case he had even told Pete that he’d never understood the world since the day he came out of hospital at the age of twelve. Although he’d never told Pete exactly why he was in hospital on that occasion, he sometimes wondered if Pete had guessed anyway.

 

 

Being taken to a Children’s Home instead of his own house should not have been a surprise, but he had been taken completely unawares. He had been devastated when he saw the big, shabby old building with the small, silent crowd waiting outside, and he remembered, with shame, screaming and shouting and trying to get away. They told him afterwards he’d rounded off the performance by crying for his lost parents in front of all the other inmates, although he didn’t remember that part.

 

 

“It took me years to work out that they’d been telling me all along what was going to happen; I just wasn’t taking it in. My mum didn’t have any relatives in this country, and my Dad ... didn’t either. There was no choice. I had to go to an orphanage.” 

 

 

Pete had raised an eyebrow at the hesitation. “That was hard for you.”

 

 

“It was. I thought I was going to go nuts, it was like I’d landed on a different planet. I had all these expectations - where I was going to live, go back to my nice smart school, friends, University, all that. But the people at the home just said I had to go to the school down the road, and the school said orphans don’t go to University.” He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Still. All in the past now.” He still tried not to think about that school. It really had been a different planet, complete with aliens who still haunted his nightmares.

 

 

“You got ‘A’ Levels though, you told me. Doesn’t sound like the kind of school that would offer ‘A’ Levels.”

 

 

“I was lucky. When I finished my third year I asked them in the Home if I could go back to my proper school to do ‘O’ Levels. I just kept on asking and asking until they said there wasn’t any real reason why not. And then they let me stay on, which was good.” 

 

 

But not good enough, he did not add. The damage to his education had been done, and the damage to his soul might never be undone. Arriving so pitifully unprepared at the Home that first day; falling apart so spectacularly and completely; being treated to the unkind attentions of the rest of the children; all these things had contributed to the sense of loss and confusion that still surfaced every time he was tired and lonely.

 

 

But something about Bowie’s strange song had helped soothe those feelings, and it helped now, as he drove home wondering yet again what Pete was doing and why he hadn’t been at home all week. Resolving to try ringing him yet again, he was disappointed when there was no answer at the first attempt. Trying again while the kettle boiled, he held on while at the other end the phone rang and rang.

 

 

He gave up for the moment, and sat down in the chilly twilight of the preternaturally tidy lounge with a cup of tea and his notes on “Being DI Tyler.” The notebook stayed closed as the light faded. He found himself thinking about going in tomorrow, and coming back in six months, and whether Pete would have moved again by then. There would be no notes this time; he had thrown away the right to such consideration.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_When Williams finally gets back from the job and two lost weeks in hospital there are two notes. They are dated five weeks apart and both are written on Pete’s trademark green-and-white printer paper. The first, coincidentally, was written on Williams’ birthday, and the second only last week, after he had “woken up”. The cheerful, round, open handwriting, so like Pete himself, is friendly and unthreatening, as is the message in both. Boiled down to essentials, it says “Phone me.”_

_Two days later, Williams faces Pete across a table in the warm canteen. No passing boats, with engines to draw his attention, no rain or wind to chill his weary bones further. The downside is that they have to speak in low tones which only add intensity to the discussion._

_Pete seems happy to see him at last, but there’s a slight edge to his manner as he jumps straight in. “Why didn’t you want me to come and see you in the hospital, Sam? DCI Sweetman told me where you were, I could have come in after work. It doesn’t take long from here, ten minutes maybe.” He laughs as if at a sudden thought. “I could have brought you some grapes! Do people really do that? Black ones or white?” He stops for a moment, puts his cup down and meets Williams’ eyes._

_“Seriously, why didn’t you want any visitors? Like I said, I would have come.” He can’t hold the gaze; he looks down at his plate, fiddles about aimlessly with his chips._

_The answer is muttered so quietly, Pete has to ask him to repeat it. “At first I think I wasn’t really there. When I was in the bank I thought I saw... well never mind that. In the hospital, for a while I didn’t know who I was. I couldn’t concentrate. But they said I was like that for nearly two weeks, and I ... to me it was just one day.” Williams is looking down too, running a thumb slowly along the edge of his knife. He continues quietly, “After that I was so ashamed of myself, of being such a fool, I couldn’t face anyone.”_

_“Come on Sam, not even me?” Pete asks. ”I would have come, Sam. I wanted to come. And you’re not a fool, you can’t think that, you’ve just been under a hell of a strain.” He looks around the canteen and lowers his voice even further, leaning forward over the table. “I read about the bank raid in the paper; they didn’t mention you, but I asked DCI Sweetman. He told me what happened. He said it was down to your information they got Davis, but that you...well, he said you’d pushed yourself beyond what anyone could be expected to cope with.”_

_Williams does not react. Pete leans back and sighs before continuing. “Look, Sam, I know it’s difficult for you. But don’t you see, this is why I asked you not to go. And I remember what you said then, but this is not normal, Sam. You have got to stop this. OK, I’m not a psychologist, but I can see what this is doing to you. Every time you come back, you’re just that little bit more closed down.”_

_“I have to be closed down. It’s how I stay safe. I can’t let them get to me.” Williams looks at the floor. He is holding the knife like a dagger aimed at his own heart, his fingers white around the handle. “It’s so hard, you don’t know how difficult it is, pretending all the time. It hurts. I hurt.” A pause. “I haven’t told DCI Morgan yet, but Dr Handley – she’s the one I saw last week - she says I must never go undercover again.”_

_He looks up finally, eyes empty. “So I’m likely to be leaving the Force. After all these years, after all I’ve done. And I don’t know what to do. I can’t do anything else, I’ve been in the Force since I was nineteen. It’s what I am.”_

_Pete puts a hand on the table as if to reach out, but apparently thinks better of it. He says, “Perhaps it’s for the best, Sam. I mean, I can understand you’re upset about having to leave the Force. If you do have to leave, that is. I mean, are you sure? Can’t they find another job for you, what about all those people who don’t go undercover every five minutes, what are they doing with their time? Can’t they send one of them next time, give you a safer job? Because this is destroying you and it’s ...” He stops, calms himself down, tries again._

_“Perhaps you_ should _leave, Sam,” he urges. “This is... This undercover business, every time you come back, you’re tired and unreasonable for weeks; every time, it takes longer to see you smile again.” He looks across the table. Williams is gazing, unfocussed, at a poster on the far wall. “Look at you now, you’re not taking anything in.”_

_“It’s my first day back; I’m so tired already, it hurts, that’s all.”_

_“I know. I’ve been talking to DCI Sweetman quite a lot over the last few weeks. He told me what the doctors said.”_

_Williams flinches. He looks up at Pete, horrified. “He_ knows _what Dr Handley said? And he_ told _you?” The sorry detail of what Dr Handley has told him – although it’s fading now, he can’t remember most of it – is that the doctor thinks he’s trying to hide from life, running away from being himself. That he’s_ choosing _to withdraw from reality. Worst of all, Dr Handley thinks that next time he might not be able to find his way back._

_“And how do you know Sweetman anyway?” he asks accusingly. “_ I’ve _never even met him. Not that I know of, anyway. Apparently that was his DI in the bank, that I ... I mean ... it was DI Mackenzie that took...me... “ He stops a moment and takes a shaky breath. “He took me outside. Afterwards. So they say. I can’t remember!” His voice rises briefly before he stops himself, fists clenched on the table, head down in humiliation. “I can’t remember, Pete! DCI Sweetman was there, and DI Mackenzie took me outside and I can’t remember any of it!”_

_Pete reassures him hastily. “Don’t worry, they understand, Sam, really they do. Like I said, I went to see DCI Sweetman. DI Mackenzie was there as well. Mike – DI Mackenzie - told me what had happened inside the bank, and DCI Sweetman told me what Doctor Handley said. He got a copy of the official notes because it was his operation, and he phoned Doctor Handley and she told him a bit of what she’d said to you, that isn’t in the notes.”_

_Williams looks up at this, feeling sick. Pete half-smiles, embarrassed. “I hope you don’t mind too much, I thought they ought to know, but I told them how many jobs you’d done like this, you know, undercover all the time, over and over, and they were shocked. They said that could explain quite a lot. So then I...” He pauses for breath. “So then I persuaded them not to tell Morgan the rest of it, the bit that wasn’t in the notes. And they promised.” He grins briefly. “I don’t think DCI Sweetman likes Frank Morgan much, to be honest.”_

_Williams brushes aside the reassurance, face set. “Sweetman shouldn’t have told_ anybody _. It’s no-one else’s business but mine. Look, I do appreciate your concern, but please, let me handle this by myself. I’ll get over it.”_

_Pete stares, but doesn’t speak for a moment. Eventually he says “By yourself. Right. OK.” He puts his face down into his hands and rubs his eyes tiredly before looking up again. He holds Williams’ gaze determinedly._

_“Sam, I can’t do this any more, I just... can’t.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m leaving, Sam. I’ve been offered a job with the Met; cutting edge technology; good money. I’ve been holding them off for weeks, waiting for you to come back, but they say they can’t wait any longer.” He looks at Williams beseechingly. “They want an answer tomorrow, Sam. I’m going to say yes.”_

_Williams’ shock goes to his core, but he can’t make it reach his face. He asks calmly “What about me? I thought we were mates.”_

_Pete makes one last brave, desperate try. “You could come with me.”_

_The look of bewilderment is enough. Pete gets up, pushes back his chair. “You don’t want a mate, Sam. You don’t want anyone.” He speaks slowly and intensely. “Truth is, you like being alone. Well I’m not hanging around any longer. I’m going to take this job, and I’m moving to London next month, and I hope everything works out for you. Goodbye, Sam. I wish I could say it’s been good.”_

_He gets up and walks away, not looking back._

_This time, Williams does not watch him go._ Nothing lasts, I always end up on my own. _He is finding it difficult to breathe. He tries very hard to think about better times instead, times they laughed and smiled together. He relaxes very slowly._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

**SUNDAY EVENING**

 

 

The chill of the empty flat settled into his bones as the evening drew on and the room became dark. Eventually he shivered and looked at the clock. He had done it again: too much time thinking of the past and not enough living in the present.

 

 

But that day in the canteen was memorable, for two reasons. It was the day he was forced to accept that Pete really would go, mates or not. And it was the day the canteen supervisor fetched DCI Morgan to talk to the man with the vacant gaze, who could not look at her and did not even seem to hear her. It took Morgan physically shaking him and speaking to him very sharply indeed to bring him back to what passed for normality. Shocked at the state his DI was in, Morgan had ordered him back home. 

 

 

When he returned to work for the second time a week later it was to the news of an unexpected promotion and a permanent desk job. He was not going to have to leave the Force, which was good, but he’d eventually become thoroughly disillusioned with the desk job, which was not. 

 

 

And now he was going undercover again, with Pete’s words about what the last operation did to him still playing across his mind. 

 

 

It was only the thought of his “new beginning” and, more directly, what Morgan could do to his career, that stopped him phoning Morgan to call the whole thing off, even at this late stage. He had an unpleasant feeling that if he upset Morgan enough, the man might just send him to ‘A’ Division anyway and leave him there. The thought made him shudder.

 

 

Putting the thought forcefully away, he tried to interest himself in choosing some clothes for Sam Tyler to wear tomorrow on his first day at ‘A’ Division. For some reason the Sam Tyler clothes were more relaxed in style than his normal wear; someone had taken that too far in his opinion. The leather jacket in particular looked disturbingly casual, but as the alternative was to go and buy himself another, he decided to take it along anyway. Perhaps it would grow on him. He placed the rest of the clothes back in the bags on top of the neatly-packed envelopes of briefing papers, and carefully hung up the shirt and trousers he had selected, trying to make the best of a bad job.

 

 

He had already rejected the cheap synthetic ties, dumping them in a bin as he walked to the station earlier to collect the car, and now he took the kitbags containing the rest of Tyler’s new clothes out to the boot of the borrowed car. Locking it up but frankly not much caring if it all got stolen overnight, he went back inside. He would get some more ties after he arrived, he thought, taking off his own favourite blue silk one for the last time. He placed it carefully over the rack inside the wardrobe door before taking off the rest of his clothes slowly, folding each item neatly and placing them on separate hangers. Morgan had promised him someone would come in tomorrow and double check everything was packed away safely. 

 

 

Pulling on his pyjamas - something else to buy for Tyler - he got into bed and tried to sleep. He planned to get up early and go through the briefing notes one last time, together with the new-personality notes.

 

 

 

 

** SUNDAY NIGHT **

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sam Williams lies in his bed, flat on his back with his face turned sideways. He fidgets, and turns his head abruptly to the other side. His fists clench and unclench ceaselessly. 

 

 

_They’re finally here. Six weeks after worming his way into Davis’s confidence, Williams enters the bank second in line, mask in place and nerves wound tight. Horrifyingly, someone calls his name – his real name – as they walk in. “Sam! No!” He knows the voice from the phone call yesterday, but he forces himself not to look round. It’s the first chink; the first suspicion from Davis and the rest of his team._

__Williams turns over and hides his face in the pillow, muttering frantically. __

_He shouldn’t be here, he knows that. He’s been ordered to make his excuses and get out, go back home before the job starts. Before Davis finds out they’re expected._

_* * *_

_When Davis tells them all the date for the job, it’s three days before he can get away to phone Morgan with the new information. Confusingly, someone else answers the special line._

_“Sam? Don’t worry, it’s DCI Sweetman here. DCI Morgan’s been called away for a few hours. I was here so he asked me to babysit the phone in case you rang. We’ve never met but I’ve heard a lot about you from Frank."_

_"It's tomorrow," Williams says. "He hasn't told us what time, says we don't need to know that yet."_

_"OK, that doesn't leave us much time. Now, you obviously know the bank they’re hitting is on my patch, not Frank’s, so I’ll be leading operations on the day. So, first things first. Can you get away? Come back home, I mean? I’ve got a large team to put into place on this, and if anyone gets a whiff of what we’re doing, they’ll know they’ve got a leak. It’s not safe, Sam. You have to come home now. Don’t go back to Davis.”_

_Williams argues. This is his operation. His information. He’s the one taking all the risks._

_Sweetman is understanding but firm. Sweetman himself will oversee matters, and his DI will be inside with a team ensuring the safety of the public. “It was never in the plan for you to go in yourself, Sam. If it makes things clearer, I’m giving you an order here. You bail out now and report to Frank by close of play.”_

_Williams slams the phone down. He’s furious. Sweetman doesn’t have the balls to go undercover himself, and now he’s trying to give orders to the man taking all the risks._

_But Williams has done all the work, spent all that time. He wants to be in at the end, even though he knows he can’t make the arrest himself because that would blow his cover._

_* * *_

_Now as they spread out around the hall of the largest branch in the city, their heels click on the marble floor, fast and threatening. Everything is working out perfectly; he’s right to have come. This is his last operation ever – they’ve promised him – and he wants to see it through properly. The last one. He can do this, he’s not scared. He’s not. They don’t know what they’re talking about._

_A sudden shriek makes him look round; he sees with horror that Davis has grabbed a girl by the hair. She’s only young, innocent. Pretty in her fresh white blouse, she shouldn’t be here. Davis said no hostages, waste of time, quick in and out. She screams. Davis shouts to his men “There’s something off here! I need a hostage.”_

__Williams writhes in his bed, twisting the sheets. The room is cool, but he’s sweating. __

_“Everybody down! Do as you’re told and no-one gets hurt!”_

_As Davis yells at the crowd, a sudden movement at the door draws Williams’ attention. The breath solidifies in his chest as he stares, transfixed, at the man in the black leather jacket who’s holding the door open for a woman with a pushchair. The man glances swiftly around the banking hall as the woman scrabbles frantically at her handbag, caught on the door handle. She’s out at last, and Williams relaxes momentarily._

_Unheard behind him, Davis roars at him to move. He’s supposed to be getting the money from the third cashier; Backer and Moss are doing one and two and the four men he hasn’t met before are doing the others._

_Then the breath leaves him entirely as the man in the jacket looks straight at him, then looks back at the door, checking his watch frequently. Slightly-built with a thin face, he looks to be in his late twenties or early thirties; his black hair falls to his collar._

_Williams’ heart starts again with a double thump; his mind reels, along with his legs, as he staggers and put his hands up to his head. Unthinking, he lifts off his mask. “Dad!” he whispers._

__Williams moans in his sleep, turning restlessly. __

_Daddy. A woman in a red dress is running, screaming. Sunlight on leaves; someone is gasping for breath. Where are you? The world goes dark. Williams shouts in fear. “No. No no NO NO NO.”_

__Williams cries out in his neat, lonely bedroom, tossing and turning desperately as if trying to escape from something. __

_The world swirls back into focus, but now it’s a different world._

_Still in the bank, but lost in his new world, Williams sees people, children, watching him as he screams in terror. “I want to go home! Get me out of here!” He starts to run, but the real world is different to the one in his head. He hits a wall he’s not seeing and bangs on it, screaming, both fists hammering. “Get me out of here! Let me go! Mum! They’re looking at me! Let me come home! Don’t make me stay here!” He stares desperately around, seeing nothing. “Please! I want to go home!”_

_His mind is breaking apart, he’s completely lost, but he’s got one thing right: he is definitely being looked at. By the team of blaggers he’s pretending to be part of, by the general public caught up in this terrible fiasco, and by the hostage, tears on her face and a knife at her neck._

__Williams whimpers in his sleep, grasping his pillow and burying his face in it again. __

_Everyone is frozen in place, staring, when the main door bursts open. Williams’ shouting has alerted Sweetman’s men outside and they storm in earlier than planned. “Stay back or I’ll do her!” Davis screams as they come straight for him. They keep running; as Sweetman himself tries to grab Davis the knife moves: a flash, a moment, and the girl is bleeding, stark red against her blouse._

_In Williams’ broken mind the carers and social workers are running towards him, gaining inexorably. He drops to his knees and cries again, begging to go home._

_Sweetman has Davis in cuffs, but there is no-one with the girl yet. As the room settles to a horrified hush, all watching Williams, the thin-faced man steps forward. “Sam?” Williams looks up, incredulous, and starts to smile, wider and wider. It’s going to be all right. Daddy has come home after all. Sammy! Big boy now! Tears of pure joy form in the unseeing eyes._

_Williams watches, glowing with happiness, as the man approaches and crouches in front of him. Unnoticed all around him, people are watching the tableau in sickened fascination. Sweetman forgets who Davis is for a moment, and they share a glance, shocked and embarrassed for the man with the wrecked mind. The girl closes her eyes and bleeds on the marble floor._

_“Sam? DI Williams? Sam!” DI Mackenzie looks round at Sweetman, who nods at his DI. He speaks more quietly now and holds out a hand. “It’s OK, Sam, you’re quite safe. You need to come with me, Sam. Come on now.”_

__Williams wakes with a gasp so sudden and deep that it robs him of the strength for the next three breaths. Finally drawing in air desperately he struggles for full wakefulness but falls back into the nightmare again and again. __

_A sudden shriek makes him look round. She’s only young. “Everybody down!“ “Daddy.” Sunlight on leaves. “Get me out of here!” His smile widens and the girl bleeds._

__A struggle with the sheets; a shudder. __

_A sudden shriek. “Get me out of here!” His smile widens and the girl bleeds._

_“Daddy.” The girl bleeds._

 

 

The sheets are clammy with sweat when Williams finally wakes, shivering in the grey dawn.

 

 

They’d told him later he was still smiling when they helped him gently into the second ambulance. 

 

 

* * *


	8. Monday - Going In

** MONDAY MORNING **

 

 

Monday morning finally arrived and with it his new badge, dropped off personally, as promised, by DCI Morgan. “Oh, and Sam, I’ll take the briefing papers back with me. You obviously can’t take them with you, and I don’t want them left here.” Morgan waited expectantly.

 

 

“Of course, Sir. If you’ll just hold on a moment, they’re in the car.” Annoyed at the unexpected request, Williams pulled the neat packets from the kit bag, taking the opportunity to deposit his “being Sam Tyler” notebook in the inside pocket along with his notes on preservation and evaluation of forensic evidence.

 

 

Far too late now to wish he’d listened to Doctor Whittaker, he thought exhaustedly as he ushered Morgan back out of his echoing flat. Yet again he’d woken up feeling as if he’d been running and fighting all night. The state of the bedclothes seemed to support the idea.

 

 

He forced himself through the usual routines - coffee, wash, shave, dress, toast, coffee - hoping that the simple, repetitive processes would engage his attention for long enough to help him achieve some degree of calm. The Tyler clothes felt strange against his skin.

 

 

The ticking of the clock, reflecting the sun in the corner opposite the window, seemed louder than usual. He found himself pressed to acknowledge every minute passing as he struggled to get the toast down. Now he had finally reached the point of no return he felt sick, and every mouthful and every movement only increased his fear and nausea and a foreboding sense of unreality. 

 

 

To keep himself focussed, he decided to rehearse his first meeting with DCI Hunt. Polite but not submissive, he thought. Minimally subordinate rather than deferential. ‘Sir’, obviously, although he planned to drop that as soon as possible. If Sam Tyler was going to challenge Hunt on his own ground, it would start with the name. But then he would have to _decide_ when to begin using the man’s name instead of his title. Too early and he risked getting smacked down for insubordination; too late and it would be just that - too late. 

 

 

He got up and paced the kitchen, trying to put the Tyler walk together with the manner of speech he had practised, remembering at the same time to concentrate on his pronunciation and the delicate balance between submission and challenge that he’d decided he had to use with Hunt. _And that’s without thinking what I’m going to actually say,_ he thought despondently. Perhaps Tyler would stand still while he was talking? _Well yes, but all the time? I don’t think so._

 

 

He tried again, this time focussing on finding the right words to signal to Hunt his compliance with orders at the same time as his essential independence of thought. When it all fell apart for the fourth time he ran his hands over his face in frustration. There were just too many things to remember all at once. 

 

 

He’d have to put them in priority order so that if he couldn’t manage everything at once, at least it was only the one aspect that wavered. But if any aspect wavered at all, wouldn’t that make them suspicious anyway? Wouldn’t they then start looking at ... _No, calm down. They have no reason to be suspicious,_ he reminded himself. _No reason at all._ He tried again, but each time something jarred; some part of the performance didn’t quite work.

 

 

When he caught himself panicking for the third time, thoughts spiralling out of control, he admitted that Doctor Whittaker’s dire warnings were very close to coming true. He knew he should never have agreed to this, although to be fair there hadn’t been much actual agreeing involved.

 

 

He took a few minutes to have one last try at phoning Pete. _Please be there_. He hadn’t dared try again last night; he’d had insane visions of the landlady reporting him as a heavy breather. _Please, answer the phone_. But again, the phone rang and rang at the other end. _Oh please, just for once..._ He’d wound himself up so tight over the past week, and this was the final straw; he couldn’t stop tears of unendurable stress forcing their way past his flawed control. Angry and ashamed, he wiped them away immediately, brushing at his eyes impatiently as he walked through the flat, checking everything one last time. 

 

 

At eight o’clock on the dot he left the flat and made himself comfortable in the shabby borrowed Rover, dumping his made-up transfer papers on the passenger seat. As he finally set out for what he knew would be his last secret operation, he realised with a sense of shock that he’d been promised the Davis operation would be “the last one” as well. That memory had lost itself amongst all the fear and confusion at the end of the Davis business, and it must have surfaced now triggered by his fears of the new operation. In an attempt to take his mind off those fears he hit the Play button on the 8-track. 

 

 

_I still don't know what I was waiting for_

 

 

For further distraction he decided to practice the new pronunciation again. He’d finally decided to go for the Southern-influenced glottal stop he’d learned at the orphanage to disguise his own precise t’s.

 

 

_And my time was running wild, a million dead-end streets_

 

 

Concentrating on how to speak would help ensure he never forgot to think about every word before he uttered it. Driving the Rover carefully through the familiar streets, he finally admitted to himself that he was terrified.

 

 

_Every time I thought I'd got it made it seemed the taste was not so sweet_

 

 

‘A’ Division, with its rough characters and infamously non-standard procedures was never going to be a place he could fit into easily. But that was precisely what he had to do. The operation could never succeed if he stood out as being too different. 

 

 

_So I turned myself to face me_

 

 

He had to be unobtrusive, appearing to go along with their unacceptably archaic practices while not incriminating himself. He shifted uneasily in his seat as he realised that he no longer had any faith in his ability to absorb the new identity and keep to it. There’d been too many before it, even without the “new personality” to complicate matters.

 

 

_But I've never caught a glimpse of how the others must see the faker ..._

 

 

Desperately, he went over the background in his head: mother still living locally, father not to be mentioned. Auntie. Hyde. Gap Year. Over and over. Mother. Auntie. Hyde.

 

 

_... Turn and face the strain ..._

 

 

He wished now he’d invented a father after all. It would be something else to talk about. What sort of idiot talks about his mother and auntie to the people he works with? And did it fit with his new personality? Did smiling, confident people talk to colleagues about their mums and aunties? Hardly. He scrubbed hard at his face, concentrating on the feeling of skin against skin.

 

 

_...Just gonna have to be a different man_

 

 

He knew he’d never been as scared as this before going into a job, and he still couldn’t pin down what it was about this one that was so frightening; he knew it wasn’t just the pressure of remembering the new personality. He tried to ignore the voices in his head, whispering endlessly _‘it’s like a different planet, Sam; in a coma, Sam; like going back in time, Sam’._

 

 

How could it be so much more difficult to be a police officer amongst police officers, than to be a small-time drug-runner amongst similar? But it was, and he could not stop his face crumpling as the despised tears threatened again. He’d vowed at the age of twelve never to cry again, and he’d kept that vow until the day he came home safe from his very first undercover operation. Since then it had been more difficult.

 

 

_... Time may change me but I can't trace time ..._

 

 

He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the road. 

 

 

He was being ridiculous, he told himself firmly. He’d dealt confidently, time and again, with villains who would not have hesitated to kill him if they thought it necessary. But that was different: expected, he told himself, just their natural behaviour. 

 

 

What was not natural, he thought, was a police officer for whom the lines were apparently so blurred there was no guarantee he would not kill too. Williams could only hope that DCI Hunt was closer to human than Morgan had made him sound.

 

 

Now he realised that this was the main cause of his fear: that he was going to have to cosy up to this terrifying creature and pretend to agree with everything he said and did when what he really wanted to do was just tell the man he had to change.

 

 

_... Where's your shame, you've left us up to our necks in it ..._

_God, I’m so fed up with being alone – I’m always on my own,_ he thought again self-pityingly. Rubbing a hand across his mouth, he swiped it back again, moving a tear away from his top lip with the back of his hand. He gripped the wheel more tightly as the voices in his head grew louder, fading and swelling again.

 

 

The tears were trickling down his face now; he could not stop them. _‘It’s like another planet over there, Sam’_. As a tear coursed delicately into his mouth he licked it away. _‘It’s like going back in time going over there_.’ He tightened his lips in an attempt to get himself under control. _‘Keep your eye on the prize, Sam’._

 

 

He hit the steering wheel. “Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it!” he shouted, angry with himself even as he did so for losing control. It was the one thing he’d agreed with the staff at the Home about: _people with an adequate command of the language don’t need to swear_ , and normally he never did. Just one more sign of how dangerously close to the edge he was.

 

 

In his imagination Morgan laughed and repeated his favourite joke yet again: “They’re so dozy over there Sam, you could run rings round them even if you were in a coma.” 

 

 

The next track started. He had never much liked this one, or the one after, so he hit the fast forward, then after a few moments, the ‘Play’ button.

 

 

Too absorbed in what he was doing, he wasn’t paying enough attention to the road. He realised belatedly that he had slowed down, forcing the following traffic to overtake with increasing difficulty as he wavered dangerously close to the middle of the road. As he looked up a red car hurtled past, the driver blasting his horn. 

 

 

Williams screeched to a halt, unreasonably shaken by the non-incident. 

 

 

He turned the engine off and undid his seatbelt as the track he wanted began to play softly. ”Life on Mars”: how appropriate for a man heading for another planet, he thought hysterically, desperately trying to get his breathing under control. He was overwrought, he knew. He desperately needed to calm down before reporting to Hunt.

 

 

_It’s a Godawful small affair_

 

 

He sat, shaking, and took more deep breaths in an attempt to calm down.

 

 

Pictures flooded jaggedly into his mind, each unsettling image swirling and flashing as it was replaced by something worse. Suspects with bruised faces, staring defeated at the camera. Reports Morgan had shown him: “unwarranted violence”; “exceeding allowed custody times without charge”; “unexplained injuries”. 

 

 

_To the girl with the mousy hair._

 

 

And, then, from four years ago, the newly-promoted DCI Hunt himself, staring grimly out of a newspaper report. Hard face, mouth like a steel trap. Long-lashed eyes burning out of the page. Williams had woken up one night yelling in fear with that picture fixed in his brain.

 

 

He shook his head to clear the images. 

 

 

_But her mummy is yelling “no!”_

 

 

He wound down the window, but the car still felt airless. The music was not working its usual magic; he still felt too shaky to drive. 

 

 

_And her Daddy has told her to go._

 

 

Eventually he opened the door and cautiously stepped out into the road, leaving the music playing. 

 

 

_But her friend is nowhere to be seen._

 

 

Still trembling, he leaned on the car door, trying to calm himself down. 

 

 

_Now she walks through a sunken dream._

 

 

He lost track of how long he stood there, regaining control of himself. Finally, realising he was going to be late for work on his very first day in ‘A’ division, he took another deep breath then got back into the car. 

 

 

_To the seat with the clearest view._

 

 

Ashamed of his weakness, and angry with himself, he banged his fist on the dashboard, hurting his hand, and started the engine. 

 

 

_And she’s hooked to the silver screen._

 

 

Summoning up all the mental strength he could find, he willed himself to focus on the music and drive on.

 

 

_But the film is a saddening bore_

 

 

Still trying to get control of his thoughts, he pulled out without looking over his shoulder.

 

 

_Cos she’s lived it ten times or..._

 

 

A lorry blared its horn as it rocked the car, a wall of steel appearing with heart-stopping suddenness at the driver’s window.

 

 

_...MORE_

 

 

Williams panicked and spun the wheel frantically. He couldn’t see where he was going. Something was wrong with his hearing as well, and he couldn’t feel the ground beneath the car. Random sounds and flashes of green filled his head as he struggled with the wheel. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

The car careers across the wasteground as if the driver cannot see where he is going. Eventually, the engine seems to cut out and the car drifts to a halt. 

 

 

After a while, the driver’s door opens. A man steps out clumsily and stumbles away, clutching his head. He gazes up at the sky; uncovering his ears he stretches his arms out, and then up as if in supplication. As he reaches towards the sky he staggers and collapses on the ground. 

 

 

Faintly heard, music plays from the car’s 8-track. 

 

 

_...friend is nowhere to be seen_

 

 

Slowly, the man’s limbs untangle and relax until he’s lying flat on his back. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Sam half-woke, struggling to understand what had happened. He had been driving, he thought, and now he seemed to be walking, searching. He was moving through woodland, sunlight dappling his vision. 

 

 

_As she walks through her sunken dream._

 

 

Moving closer to consciousness, he recognised his persistent childhood nightmare, and lay still, sweating coldly, as it played again inside his head. He was walking through the woods. As always, something terrible was going to happen and he had to stop it.

 

 

_To the seat with the clearest view._

 

 

“Where are you?” he whispered. Again the sun lit the woman in the red dress as she ran, screaming, from ...who? 

 

 

_And she’s hooked to the silver screen._

 

 

If only he could feel the ground beneath his feet, he knew he could save her this time. As he tried desperately to see what or who the woman was running from, the sunlight tilted and he was surrounded by blackness. 

 

 

_But the film is a saddening bore_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sam opened his eyes as if shocked awake.

 

 

_Cos she’s lived it ten times or more_

 

 

He could feel rough ground under his back. His fingers, arms limp by his sides, moved across stones and dust. Only his eyes moved as he ran through a mental inventory of bones and muscles. Nothing broken or torn. 

 

 

_She could spit in the eyes of fools_

 

 

He sat up, gasping with the effort and looked around him, bewildered. 

 

 

_As they ask her to focus on_

 

 

He tried to focus on his surroundings. 

 

 

_Sailors fighting in the dance hall_

 

 

As he started to pull himself up, he looked all around again, seeing only wasteland stretching for several hundred yards in all directions. He seemed to be on a building site, except there were no new structures, only the smoking aftermath of old buildings destroyed.

 

 

_Oh man, look at those cavemen go_

 

 

Still finding his balance, he tried again to stand up. It seemed to be taking a very long time, he thought, dazed. 

 

 

_It’s the freakiest show._

 

 

He staggered slightly, and finally managed to get himself on his feet. 

 

 

_Take a look at the lawman_

 

 

Now he could feel the ground he was standing on. As he stood up, the world starting to steady, he tried to get a grip on his wandering mind, still skittering uncontrolled. 

 

 

_OK, first things first: where the bloody hell am I?_

_...Beating up the wrong guy._

_God knows_ he thought as he looked around him, seeing nothing he recognised.

 

 

_Oh man, wonder if they’ll ever know_

 

 

Bewildered, he started to turn on the spot, still seeing nothing that made any sense. 

 

 

_He’s in the best-selling show_

 

 

Completing the circle, he stared again, bewildered, at the broken buildings all around, the smoke rising and the dust settling.

 

 

_Is there life on Mars_

 

 

He blinked in shock as he finally acknowledged the music that he had assumed until now was only in his head. _Life on Mars,_ he thought. _That’s appropriate - it_ is _like another bloody planet._

 

 

His mind seemed to click into place at last and he moved purposefully towards the car he had noticed during his survey, tripping over demolition rubble as he went. As he got nearer, the music swelled, filling his head with sounds that were definitely real. _Well, probably real. OK, maybe real._

_Right, come on brain, think about it. I must have been going somewhere. I wasn’t coming here, that’s for sure._ He looked in through the car window _, seeing an 8-track in the console; a pile of paperwork on the far seat. _So, what do we know so far?__ He concentrated, and spoke out loud. 

 

 

“My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident, and I woke up ... here.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

END


End file.
